Nvmen Vol 43

INTERNATIONALREVIEWFOR THE
HISTORYOF RELIGIONS
EDITED ON BEHALFOF THE
INTERNATIONALASSOCIATIONFOR THE
HISTORYOF RELIGIONS
andE.T LAWSON
by H.G.KIPPENBERG
VOLUME XLIII
,EGI
/6
85
LEIDEN
E.J. BRILL
1996
CONTENTS
Articles
The Revival of Mexican Religions: The
Yolotl GONZALEZ
TORRES,
...1.
Impact of Nativism ..................................
Constructionand Reconstructionof Sacred Space in
Hans BAKKER,
Varanasi ...................................................
The Female Pole of the Godhead in Tantrism
Knut A. JACOBSEN,
and the Prakrti of Samkhya .................................
Hans G. KIPPENBERG,
Religion, Law and the Constructionof Identities. Preface ..............................................
WinnifredFallers SULLIVAN,
Religion, Law and the Constructionof
Identities. Introduction .....................................
Elizabeth DALE,Conflicts of Law: Reconsideringthe Influence of
Religion on Law in MassachusettsBay ......................
At the Boundaries of Religious Identity:
Susan Staiger GOODING,
Native AmericanReligions and AmericanLegal Culture ......
Winnifred Fallers SULLIVAN,
Competing Theories of Religion and
Law in the Supreme Court of the United States: An Hasidic
Case ......................................................
"No Longer the Messiah": US FederalLaw
LawrenceE. SULLIVAN,
Enforcement Views of Religion in Connection with the 1993
Siege of Mount Carmel near Waco, Texas ....................
Jorg RUPKE,Controllers and Professionals: Analyzing Religious
Specialists .................................................
Predecessorsand Prototypes: Towardsa ConBryan Jare CUEVAS,
ceptual History of the BuddhistAntarabhava.................
32
56
125
128
139
157
184
213
241
263
Review article
The Ubiquitous 'Divine Man' ............
Jaap-JanFLINTERMAN,
David FRANKFURTER,
Native Egyptian Religion in its Roman Guise .........................................................
82
303
Conference
A Reporton the XVIIth InternationalCongress for
Sylvia MARCOS,
the History of Religions ....................................
99
VI
CONTENTS
Book reviews
Pascal Boyer (Ed.), Cognitive Aspects of Religious Symbolism
(J.G. PLATVOET)...........................................
104
Sumner B. Twiss and Walter H. Conser Jr. (Eds), Experience of

the Sacred: Readings in the Phenomenology of Religion
(J.G. PLATVOET)...........................................
106
Nanno Marinatosand Robin Hagg (Eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New

Approaches;Le sanctuairegrec (FondationHardt:Entretienssur
l'antiquite classique, 37); Marcel Pierart(Ed.), Polydipsion Argos. Argos de la fin des palais myceniens a la constitution de
l'Etat classique (Christoph AUFFARTH).......................
108
Jorg Riipke,Kalenderund Offentlichkeit.Die Geschichteder Reprisentationund religi6sen Qualifikationvon Zeit in Rom (Manfred
CLAUSS) ...................................................
112
Brian P. Clarke, Piety and Nationalism: Lay VoluntaryAssociations and the Creationof an Irish-CatholicCommunityin Toronto,
1850-1895 (Norbert M. BORENGASSER)......................
114
George J. Tanabeand Willa J. Tanabe,The Lotus Sutrain Japanese

Culture;Ian Reader,Religion in ContemporaryJapan;Nobutaka
Inoue (Ed.), New Religions (R.J.Z. WERBLOWSKY)...........
Joachim Stiss, Zur Erleuchtung unterwegs. Neo-Sannyasin in

Deutschlandund ihre Religion (Dirk OTTEN).................
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Paying the Words Extra. Religious
Discourse in the Supreme Court of the United States (Jerald
BRAUER) ..................................................
115
117
235
Stephen D. O'Leary,Arguing the Apocalypse. A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (Hans G. KIPPENBERG) .........................
316
Antoine Faivre, The EternalHermes: From Greek God to Alchemical Magus (Luther H. MARTIN) .............................
HananyaGoodman (Ed.), Between Jerusalemand Benares: Studies

in Judaismand Hinduism (NathanKATZ) ....................
Rules and Regulations of BrahmanicalAsceticism. Yatidharmasamuccaya of Yadava Prakasa. Ed. and transl. by PatrickOlivelle
(Knut A. JACOBSEN).....................................
317
318
321
Valerie Hansen, Negotiating Daily Life in TraditionalChina: How

Ordinary People Used Contracts (R.J. Zwi WERBLOWSKY)....
323
CONTENTS
VII
Franz Overbeck, Werke und NachlaB. Band 1: Schriften bis 1873.

Band 2: Schriftenbis 1880 (FriedrichWilhelm GRAF) ........
Publications received....................................
324
119, 237, 327
Report
News from the InternationalAssociation for the Historyof Religions
(IAHR) ....................................................
335
NVMEN
ISSN 0029-5973
? Copyright1996 by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands
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IN THENETHERLANDS
THE REVIVAL OF MEXICAN RELIGIONS:

THE IMPACT OF NATIVISM*
YOLOTL GONZALEZ TORRES
Summary
About thirty years ago, there was a deep transformationin Mexican society due,
among other things, to the introductionof capitalisttechnologies and a geographical
mobility of population which generated a generalized social crisis which allowed
the massive penetrationand proliferationof religious movements in Mexico. These
were mainly Protestantin its differentversions as well as groups of Easternorigins.
Somewhat, as a counterpartmovement, the "Mexicanidad"-Mexicaness,started to
increase in popularity. The "Mexicanidad"is formed by three main groups which
differentiate in many aspects, but have as their common goal the restoration of
Mexico as the spiritual center of the world. We try to analyze the three different
groups and its associations with each other.
All who are committedto the study of Prehispanicreligions, above

all that of the Mexicas,l concur along the general lines that this was
a polytheistic religion whose gods representedthe forces of nature,
as well as mythical heroes who had been deified. They also agree
that it was a state religion with an advanced level of organization
and a complex priesthood and ritual structure,based upon a system
of beliefs regardingwhich only some versions of their myths have
been barely-preserved.At the time of the conquesttherewere numerous temples and distinct orders of priests. Although their pantheon
included many gods, the principle deities were Huitzilpochtli, their
patron god as well as the god of war; the gods of water, fire and
sun; Quetzalcoatl, "the serpent Quetzal";and Tezcatlipoca, "mirror
of smoke".
These last two gods played a very importantrole and always appear
as counterposed: Tezcatlipoca has been compared to the Supreme
god, the Creator, who is known by a number of names and lives
in the highest heavens, whereas on the other hand Quetzalcoatl is
? E. J. Brill, Leiden (1996)
NUMEN, Vol. 43
YolotlGonzalez Torres
a complex deity in whom a series of differing attributesare united.

Amongst these is that of the culturalhero who ruled Tula, a mythic
historical city, bringing prosperityand wisdom until he was tricked
by Tezcatlipoca. The latter forced him to sin and abandonhis city,
heading for the east where, on the seashore he was incineratedand
became the planet Venus, but not before predictingthat he would one
day returnto his kingdom.
It was because of this prediction, the description of Quetzalcoatl
as a white-skinnedman with a beard, and also the omens which preceded the arrivalof the Spaniards,that Moctezuma believed that the
god had in fact returnedto reclaim his rule. The figure of Quetzalcoatl has attracteda special interest amongst various researchers,in
particularLaurette Sejouree (p. 65), who evolves a very personal
reinterpretationof the Mexican and Toltec religions.2She writes:
The spiritual content of the Quetzalcoatl myth leaps to the eye: his distress
at his sin, his passionate need to be cleansed; just as the bonfire bursts into
light, it retains bright traces of a religious doctrine, singularly compatible with
that in which humanity,by means of diverse symbolic languages, has known
worldwide.
She also holds that (p. 131) the plumed serpent is a symbol of the
Nahuatl religion, as it was the effigy of a consciousness of creative
duality, although she maintainshowever that (p. 171) the Aztecs degradedthis spiritualdoctrineinto a materialisticone, including many
spiritualpractices which were also broughtdown to this level. This,
for example was her explanation of the Mexican rituals known as
"gladiatorialfights" and the skinnings which followed, in which a
prisoner of war was forced to fight from a position of total disadvantage against four Mexican warriors,including one who was lefthanded. Once defeated and sacrificed by means of the removal of
the heart, the skin would be worn by someone who had taken the
sacred vows and the corpse cut into pieces and divided. Sejouree
reinterpretsthis as:
Evidence of initiation rites, protectedby God who, in liberatingthe individual
from temporal limitations, opens the gates of infinity. The symbolism could
not be more eloquent: after the union of opposites, dealt by the left-handed
The Revival of Mexican Religions
warrior,the initiate is divested of his earthly covering (through the skinning)

and is foreverrid of his mortal flesh (the division and distributionof the corpse)
(p. 171).
In addition to these beautified interpretationsof Toltec religion, in

recent years there has also been a tendency to deny the validity of
documentarysources, above all those written by the Spanish or hispanicised Indians, sources upon which those of us dedicated to the
study of Prehispanicculturemust rely. One of the most controversial
issues is that of human sacrifice and also cannibalism,both of which
have been fiercely contested by a certain section of members of the
Mexicanidad-Mexicanessmovement.
This theme has been contestednot only regardingPrehispanicpeoples of Mesoamerica,but also on a universallevel by some scholars.
Thus in his book of the Man eating myth, Arens assures his readers
that there is no concrete or certified evidence to confirm that the socalled "primitivepeople" practicedcannibalism,and that it is all an
inventionof westernersfor the sole purposeof denigratingthese peoples. In the same vein, some Mexican authors, such as Ferre, have
written books which, pretendingto defend the indigenous peoples,
mark out for attentionall those researcherslike myself (1980), who
do indeed confirmthe existence of humansacrificeamong Mesoamerican peoples, arguing that in so doing we are complicitous in their
denigrationat the very moment when one should be taking their part.
This is of course an emotional ratherthan a scientific argumentand,
although it merits sympathy,should not be taken into consideration
in serious works of research.
There is no doubt that in ancient Mexican society an esoteric
knowledge was kept in the handsof the tlamatinime,or sages, amongst
which was included the use of calendars which emphasised the importance of Venus. This knowledge we can barely glimpse in the
codices and archeological ruins which disappearedafter the systematic destructionof the temples and manuscripts,forcible conversion
of the population,and the persecutionand punishment(including the
death penalty) of all who committedthe offence of "idolatry".To this
we can add the dramaticdecrease of the populationdue to illnesses
Yolotl Gonzalez Torres
introduced by the Europeans, which would have killed off those sages
who were still in existence. Some writers (Warman, p. 212) claim
that before 1560, the process by which one religion substituted the
other seemed complete and, by the Eighteenth Century, when Boturini came to Mexico to gather a collection for his "museum", in
pursuit of indigenous documents so that he could write a history of
America, it was impossible for him to find anyone to translate and
explain them. He mourned that:
The worst thing of all is that I cannot find today a single person amongst the
Indians who can cast any light upon the subject. There appearsto have been a
conspiracy of envy and time which resulted in the obliterationof all that was
most precious and, with a seemingly indiscrete zeal they set aflame all those
antique monuments which came into their hands. Those which escaped the
flames, maintainedin their naturalhomes, collapsed with the passing away of
their owners, in the custody of women and childrenwho broke them into pieces
before they turnedto dust. In summary,nothing is left of past times but slight
remains and when one speaks to the Indians regardingthis topic, they listen
avidly, but the old things appearto them as though they were new inventions.
Provoked furtherto respond, they do so in a kind of delirium, as though they
were dreaming. Don Fernandode Alva Ixtilxochitl writes to the same intent in
his prologue to the manuscriptof the GeneralHistory of New Spain. Wishing to
find among the nobles someone who would help him to reinterpretthe lineage
of the gentility, he travelledgreat distances for some years before 1600 in search
of the oldest and wisest. But he found no more than two, who could give him
only very little news, and the others spoke such nonsense that one could do
little else than laugh, but also feel inconsolable. Which goes to confirm that
through such journeys to the same extent and purpose one century later, and
more, I found almost all the history of that scientific part of the New World in
the Indies totally buried in forgetfulness.
This was not the case with popular religiosity which continues to this
day amongst the different ethnic groups, with their own specialists,
with different grades of mixtures, interpretations, superimpositions,
or in parallel forms to the Catholicism which was imposed. There
are also ethnic groups with whom the attempt at conversion failed
and who conserved their ancestors' religion, as in the case of the
Huicholes, although obviously altered to accommodate contemporary
demands, as would occur in any living society.
The efforts at conversion over five centuries resulted in Mexico's

majorityreligion becoming a baroqueSpanishCatholicismwhich has
suffered enormous setbacks, above all in the last decade under the
aggressive evangelism of various different Protestantdenominations
which brought with them grave inter-religiousproblems in Indian
communities. Moreover, in the urban centres religious forms have
flourishedthroughoutall social classes, some of these truly Mexican
forms such as TrinitarianMarianSpiritualism(OrtizEchaniz). Fairly
recently, other religious movements have arisen which, although we
have groupedthem underthe terminologyof "Mexicanidad",are constituted by distinct groups with different origins and interests, but
which have, as one of their primaryaims, the revival of the spiritual
values of the ancient Mexican culture, primarilythat of the Mexica.
Many of their members adopt the characterof the Indian as a form
of identity although they are so neither by religion nor race.
Among the country's different aboriginal ethnic groups we have
thereforethe continuedexistence of a form of religiosity which contains a large quantityof Mesoamericanelements, some of them mixed
with Catholicism. But the organisedreligion of the Mexica State and
its astronomical,mathematicaland historicalknowledge disappeared.
The Mexican population,especially that of the urbancentres, became
homogenised and culturallymixed independentlyof theirgenes. During the colonial period all the values and knowledge of the Prehispanics were ignored and we have seen how in the Eighteenth Century
it was an Italian who was interested in the recovery and study of
those codices and manuscriptsreferringto Mexican antiquity. Afterwards,anotherforeigner,Baron Von Humboldt,travellingthrough
Mexico at the end of the colonial period, also showed an interest in
ancient Mexican civilization. After Independence,at the end of the
NineteenthCenturyand beginningof the Twentieth(GarciaQuintana,
p. 15) there was an anti-Hispanicreaction and the ancient civilization began to be taken into account. In 1826, only four years after
Independence,the masons who were members of the Rites of York,
which repudiatedthe Spaniardswith particularvengeance, founded
the "Indian-Aztec"Lodge.
Despite the gloss that many intellectuals and politicians had lavished upon the ancient indigenous population, the majority of the
Prehispanicistsconsidered this facet of the past to be part of their
own history,to the same extent as was the colonial epoch. Later,various historians,some of them speakersof Nahuatl,undertookthe task
of seeking out, rescuing, revising and publishing documents on the
ancient Mexicans and their civilization, but none of these regarded
themselves as Indians, much less believed in the Mexica religion.
The famous president,Benito Juarez(a pure Zapotecan)who passed
the Reform Laws 1856-593 never once intended to adopt aspects of
the native culture. On the contrary,he was a typical Latin American
liberal. Maximilian of Austria, paradoxically,was more sensitive,
not only to "antiquities",but also to the living indigenous culture.
Altamirano,a writerand teacher,and also a pure Nahua native (Warman, p. 127), lived in a permanentstate of wonder before the deep
mysteries of indigenous Mexico. All of the above demonstratethe
distance which four centuries of colonization, and afterwards,domination, by the Hispanicculturehad provokedin Mexican society with
relation to its past aboriginalculture.
Although the Reform Laws diminished the power of the Catholic
Church many of those who had fought its sway continued to be
Catholic, and others who were sympathisersand promoters of the
introductionof Protestantgroups, as well as many others who belonged to a Masonic Lodge-all looked upon the ancient Mexican
religion with horrorand the practices of the Indians as superstition.
The ideal of a homogenized nation with a "cosmic"race (productof
mixed Indian and Spanish blood) in search of progress, at the same
time censured live Indian peoples, and all that was associated with
them from language to costume and dress in general. However, it
was necessary to encourage nationalismand to create heroic figures.
Thus Cuahtemoc was chosen as a symbol of the fight against the
Spaniards. Despite the exaltation of this Prehispanicfigure and that
the ruins in Teotihuacanbegan to be excavated, the Indians continued to be regardedas backward,shunning advancementand all that
needed to be adopted for the advancementof Mexico.
The RevolutionaryMovementcame to change this situationsomewhat, but still at the time of Carranza(1913-40) the use of the white
"calz6n", a pyjama-likegarment which had been in popularuse for
a long time by the peasants, especially the Indians, was prohibited.
He made them buy and use trousers! Also around 1921-24 in the
State of Tabasco, its governorGarridoCanabalforbade the Catholic
religion, but he also forbadethe Indians to speak their languages, to
use their clothes and to practice any of their own rites. Until very
recently,the teacherswho went to teach in ruralregions also forbade
their pupils to speak in their own language, not only making education more difficult but also making the children feel that their's was
an inferior language.
This schizophrenic situation of Mexicans persists to the present.
On the one hand the National Museum of Anthropology was built
to display what was our great civilization, and on the other the Indians are considered the ugly ducklings of whom Mexicans have been
ashamedfor centuriesand who are now beginningto show their faces
in a more assertive manner.
During the last 30 years the deep transformationshave been experienced by the whole of Mexican society, "generatedby industrialization and accelerated urbanization,the unequal development of
different regions and the penetrationby refractionof new capitalist
technologies and methods of exploitationof resources,the geographical mobility of populations drawn by the cities and development
zones, in sum a generalized social crisis which is linked with psychological problems of uprooting which lead to changes of religion
and identity"(Gimenez, p. 41). All these have facilitatedthe massive
penetrationand proliferationof religious movementsin Mexico, most
of which are derived from Protestantismin its different versions, as
well as the ramificationsof groups, sects4 and pseudo religious organizations of Easternorigin and introducedin our country mainly by
Europeansand North Americans.
Due to the situation which favours the developmentand gestation
of such phenomena, and somewhat as its counterpart,the movement
of "la mexicanidad"is developing. This movement as far as we have
been able to understand,is not homogeneous, and is one in which

basically threedifferentgroupscan be distinguished,each one formed
by membersof a certaintype, with its own rules, its own goals and its
own genesis; these only mantain links amongst themselves in their
desire to restore Prehispanic values and spirituality,and materially
in time and space and and to some extent in certain ceremonies.
These groups are: that which is known by the name of Movimiento
Confederado Restauradordel Anahuac (ConfederateMovement for
the Restorationof Anahuac), the MCRA, anotherwe shall name as
"la Tradicion"and the one formed by the followers of Regina or
"Reginos".
The origin of these movementsvaries accordingto their social, political or culturalconditions and to their spirituallack which may become potentialsources for individualsto leave theirmajoritytradition.
In subjective terms they can include otherworldly traditions, even
though in these instances the attractionsare mainly of an emotional
or intellectual kind and of a search for identity, which as Gimenez
(p. 27) says should not be conceived of as a paradigmof identification, but as an active and complex process, historically situated and
a result of conflict and struggle, which is the reason why one of its
characteristicsis flexibility.
In relation to the origin of the Movimiento ConfederadoRestaurador del Anahuac, MCRA it can be noted that during the decade
of the twenties and thirties, small groups of persons got together,
especially in Mexico City, to teach Nahuatl, the language spoken by
the Aztecs and some ethnic groups still existing in Mexico, and the
handling of the Aztec calendar,and from within these circles an importantpersonality came to prominence: Jorge Nieva, who brought
cohesion and form to the movement of "la Mexicanidad".Nieva was
a lawyer and until his death held posts of considerableimportancein
the Mexican governmentand he also wrote a column in the newspaper El Universal. He was an active participantin the formation of
groups whose aim was to seek an identity. First he was partof a Creole movement, whose followers maintainedthat those were the true
Mexicans, looking down upon the Indians and the foreigners. After
that he assumed himself to be a Mestizo until he decided to adopt

an Indian identity. Around 1947 he had a revelation, when he was
summoned by the "Council of Elders"5at Xochimilco, along with
other young men among whom was Tlacaelel (Tlacaelel, p. 304),
whom we shall discuss later, who had been selected to perpetuate
"la Mexicanidad". In this meeting they were given the order left by
Cuauhtemoc,the last Mexican Emperor,before the surrenderof the
city of Tenochtitlan.In 1957 he renouncedhis Catholic religion and
in that same year founded the "movimientomexicanista"(mexicanist
movement) or Metzikayo Ahcomanalli and launched the doctrine of
Mexicanidad (Guemez 1993, p. 116) one of whose proposals was
to restore the Nahuatl language to the exclusion of any other (Guemez 1993, p. 121). In 1959 it became the Movimiento Confederado
Restauradordel Anahuac, comprised almost totally of professionals,
among whom was Eulalia Guzman, a controversialanthropologist
who denied the practice of human sacrifices by Prehispanicpeoples
and who was in charge of "discovering"the bones of Cuauhtmeoc,
which according to one traditionhad been buried in the church of
Ichcateopanin the State of Guerrero. Nieva also fought against the
celebration of the "day of the race" in October in remembranceof
the arrivalof Columbusto America.
In 1967 Nieva made his real political intention explicit, founding the "Partidode la Mexicanidad"(party of la Mexicanidad) and
preparingto govern the country. However, just as he was getting
ready to propose himself as the presidentialcandidatefor the presidency of the Republic, he fell ill and died. Apparentlywhen he took
the political step of founding the party he did not enjoy the support
of the "autochthones"or priests and it is rumoredthat that was the
cause of his death.
The last years of Nieva at the helm of the MCRA coincided with
an atmosphereof maladjustmentsin the global society which Bonfil
(p. 18) attributesto "acceleratedtransformationsof severalspaces into
the whole of economic relations,linked to the deteriorationaffecting
the majority of people, which lead to an intensificationof spiritual
search and of new religious experiences",at a time when the oriental
10
sects were having strongerinfluence in Mexico (the Great Universal

Fraternityhad alreadyintroducedyoga); Wasson in his books encourages the use of halucinogenic mushrooms;the town of Huauhtlain
Oaxaca becomes a center for the search of extrasensoryexperiences
by means of the halucinogenicmushrooms,with MariaSabina as the
great priestess. In addition, the spiritualityof the North American
Indians is discovered throughthe works of Castaneda;the ecological
movements grow into prominence and there is a recognition of alternativemedicines, among which traditionalIndian medicine plays
an importantrole with all its magical and religious qualities. This
is not to forget the existence of Marian TrinitarianSpiritualism, a
popularMexican religion which also contributedwith its share of the
supernatural,and, in certainstrataof the population,the presence of a
high level of frustration,pain and anger owing to extremely shocking
events such as the 1968 student's massacre. Perhaps here we could
fit Gramsci's observationabout the correlationbetween the existence
of the absence of political liberty and the proliferationof religious
sects.
At a global level in the sixties there were a great number of religious separatistinnovations, above all in the urban media, which
together became a new force in the field of religion. Many of these
sects had as their main concerns the real self, as well as the intense
experience of the numinous and practical methods to improve their
quality of life. These movements have been even classified as forms
of escapism, as they try to isolate themselves from the modem world.
(Robbins and Anthony).
All this contributedto the transformationof the MCRA, because
even though Nieva was not "a big deal in esoteric matters"an important section of the members of the organizationwere interested
in these topics, among them the specialists in occult knowledge, the
"autochthonousor aboriginalpriests" who indicate the correct path
to follow, those who decipher the ancient codices and the ones who
prophesy.
In the life histories of some of them (Guemez 1984 and Tlacaelel)
one can see that at a certain stage of their lives they became in-
11
volved with differentesoteric groups such as masons, spiritualists,or

the "world association of supreme truth"etc., and also had communication with a teacher who taught them new esoteric and healing
techniques, besides which many of them were drawn to the mexicanidad path through visions which they had before being called
by the "Council of Elders". Tlacaelel says that besides having had
extrasensoryexperiences since he was a child, he was struck by a
thunderboltfour times, which for many Indian traditionsmeans that
he had been chosen by the water gods to be a "granicero",that is a
healer, who is able to handle the illnesses of "cold type" and a "rain
maker",a power which Tlacaelel claims to have.
The MCRA, within which are included a number of different
groups which sharemore or less theircosmovision and theirideology,
has been involved in a process of transformationthrough the years
and through these events, entering into globalization, influenced by
currentsand new social movements which have appearedin the last
decade. Within a culture with a greater syncretism and an increasingly bureaucraticsocial structurein a returnto the religious with
novel forms (despite predictionsto the contrary,with the secularization theory) has appearedas well as differenttypes of macronationalistic crises and the rise of others, erosion of the greatregionalblocks,
and world erosion of prospective as well as utopian "identities"(as
in the case of socialism). As a reaction to the needs of "emotional
communities"of reducedtype, there is a reaffirmationof "identities"
and a proliferationof empathetic microgroupssuch as sects, youth
bands, base communities, etc. all of them encompassedby Maffesoli
(cit Gimenez, p. 8) under the denominationof neotribalism.
The members of the restorationmovement intend to revive an idealized form of the Mexica culture,of what they think was their social
organization,their beliefs and their spiritualvalues. They claim that
the Mexica had the most perfect democracy in the world and that
there were no social classes, kings or emperors. At presentthe members of the MCRA are ruledby a superiororgancalled Uey Tlahtoque
or Teo Huey Tlahtoque,a Council composed of two main positions,
the "Tekutli"or GreatExecutorand the "Ziuacoatl"or GreatAdmin-
12
YolotlGonzclez Torres
istrator. They are organized in kalpultin, which is the name of an

ancient form of organizationof most of the Mesoamericanpeople,
which referredmainly to a localized group of people who were probably also related through family ties. Each of the kalpultin of the
MCRA has a certain autonomy,and is based on "pre-kuauhtemicos"
principles (they refuse to use the word Prehispanicand instead use
prekuahtemic:before Cuauhtemoc)which they say are based on selfsufficiency, autonomy,good faith, solidarity,fraternityand self government. In 1979 Guemez (1984) registered 10 kalpultinbelonging
to the MCRA, some of them simple cooperatives with the name of
kalpultin, which were located in different parts of the city and the
republic, including two in the United States, one in Chicago and one
in Michigan. Even without the availabilityof modem data, one can
safely assume that this amount of kalpultin would have tripled or
quadrupledin number. Some of them have their kalmekak,that is
school of Prehispanicor prekuahtemictype, like the one of Coacalco
whose director is Tlacaelel, and another,Omeyotl which is formed
by a dissident group whose leader maintains that he is only interested in training cadres and he believes that the Aztec belong to a
higher race and the Jews to a lower one. The kalpulli of Tlacaelel
has become a popularcenter of spiritualpreparationin the tradition
of mexicanidad. Several groups of young people have been trained
here and some foreigners are even part of it.
Some of the members of the MCRA have formed organizations
like the Center of Cultureand Mentality of Anahuac or the Council
of Traditionand Culture of Anahuac, whose main activities are the
teaching of the Nahuatl language and the philosophy of Anahuac.
They insist that a new history of the Prehispanicpeoples should be
written, arguing that the one written by Mexican scholars is false
as it is based on a partial and false version given by the Spanish
chroniclers.
Their vision of the past Mexica culture is absolutely ethnocentric,
placing it in the center of a series of myths which they have recreated.
They have proposedthatthe rest of the prehispaniccultures: Mayans,
Olmecs, Teotihuacansetc. were of Nahua affiliation. They claim that
13
long ago the Naga-maya (Guemez 1984, pp. 27, 28) set sail in the
Atlantic, and upon crossing arrived,through the Hercules columns,
in Egypt, where they became the advisers of the Pharaoh,who was
overwhelmedby so much wisdom, and they were known by the name
of Atlantes. Socrates and Plato took the Mexica culture to Greece
and later to Rome. The Republic and The Dialogues comprised the
inheritanceof Anahuac culture (Guemez 1993, p. 66).
One of the "autochthones",Mr Martinez (Guemez 1984, p. 66)
claims that the paradisewhich has been sought by the scientists is in
the Ajusco (a mountainSouth of the Valley of Mexico), where 1200
tablets of the Naga-maya "which they say is of the Hindu culture"
were found. Some of them also identify the true teaching of Christ
with the teachings of the Mexicas and they recognize the Age of
Aquarius,which accordingto them is the fifth sun.6
All these facts fit very well with what Barth and Hobswan (cit
Gimenez, pp. 25, 26) claim that "not all the cultural traits which
are registeredby the external observer are equally pertinentfor the
definition of identity, but only some of them, which are socially selected, hierarchizedand codified to marktheir frontiersin a symbolic
manner to interact with other social actors. Moreover, at the time
that social identity tends to act as a sort of idealized superego, the
social act may invoke, in order to define its identity, cultural traits
which are objectively inexistent and even inventedtraditions".
Part of the activities of the MCRA consists in organizingproselityzing acts in the style of civic religious performances,especially in
the CentralSquare of the city, in front of the monumentof Cuauhtemoc, or in some of the archaeologicalsites.
Many of the public activities have been sponsoredby the government, first thanks to the contacts Nieva had in the Governmentand
afterwardsbecause they formed partof those public acts with a more
nationalistic tinge. Some of these activities have been acquiring a
letter of naturalizationand form part of the social-civic activities organized by the Government,for instance the Ceremony of the New
Fire which is organized in the quarterof Iztapalapa(an old village
which has merged into the city and where in Aztec times, every 52
14
years a big ceremony was held to light a new fire), by its Political
Delegation and a group of Aztec dancers. In the same manner the
governmentof the State of Nayarit,where Aztlan, the mythical original place of the Aztecs was supposed to be, has performedseveral
civic religious ceremonies, in which groups of the Mexicanidadhave
participated.Aztlan has become a very importantsymbolic place for
the Chicanos.
The main public celebrations held by the people of the Mexicanidad take place during the solstices, the equinoxes, the Zenithcrossings of the sun, the New Fire, the Great festival of the New
Shoot or the Maiden of Spring, and of the New Year of Anahuac
held on the 13th of August when the fall of Tenochtitlanis mourned
and the anniversaryof the discovery of the bones of Cuauhtemoc.
The cult of Cuauhtemochas great importancein the movement of
la Mexicanidad, for his is an attractiveand tragic figure. He was
barely a child when he was chosen as the last emperorof the Aztecs
after Moctezuma had been killed and the city was under siege by
the Spaniardsand their Indian allies. After a brave defense of the
city he was forced to surrenderand was taken prisoner by Cortes
and along with other Indian leaders torturedby burningthe soles of
his feet in the attempt to make them confess where Moctezuma's
treasurehad been buried. AfterwardsCortes took Cuauhtemocalong
with him on one of his incursions into the South of Mexico and
hanged him from a tree. It is said that on the 12th of August, one
day before the capitulationof Tenochtitlan,he sent a war dispatch,
announcingthe imminentsurrenderof the city, and the following day
he issued a message directed to "Mexicansof all times" in which he
requestedthat everythingwhich they loved and considered a treasure
be hidden and the knowledge preservedthroughoral tradition. Fifty
years ago, when the "Council of Elders"called, among others Nieva
and Tlacaelel, the message was made explicit, with the orderto rescue
the cultureof Anahuac(a synonym of Mexico). Cuauhtemocbecame
the Great Spirit, and as the living symbol of the ancient culture, he
appearsto the mediums and the spiritualhealers and guides them in
15
their cures, and a messianic movement has now been created where
he is considered the future Messiah.
The cult of his figure starteda short time after Mexico gained its
independence from Spain. As far as we know the masons were the
first to incorporatehim into theircalendarof saints and in 1890 in the
Aztec lodge a greatwake was held in front of the altarof the hero. In
the historiographyof the nineteenthcentury Cuauhtemocis praised
by liberals as well as by conservatives. The image given of him as
a brave, noble, pure, intrepidman, did not spreadamong the people,
and only touched a small circle. However, the governmentorchestrated the exaltation of the hero even while the living Indians were
despised, the ancient civilization was praised, and Cuauhtemocwas
a symbol they needed. During the governmentof PorfirioDiaz, who
became a dictator,and who was known for his French tastes, an image of Cuauhtemocwas inauguratedin 1877. After that, government
groups celebratedfunctions in his honor by propitiatinghis cult, and
popularizinghis name, which was adoptedby mutualistsocieties and
masonic lodges which had close connections with the Government.
Around the fifties, there was a big controversyregardingan oral
traditionwhich claimed that Cuauhtemoc'sbones were buriedin the
church of Ichcateopan,in the State of Guerrero.Many experts were
called to analyze the oral tradition,historicaldataand the bones themselves, and all concludedthatthey were not the bones of Cuauhtemoc.
Nevertheless, due to political interests, they were declared officially
authenticby the Presidentof the Republic.
The cult of Cuauhtemoc took different paths and has been increasing in such a way that each year more and more people attend
his celebration and dance the Aztec dance. At the same time the
rancourand hatredtowardsCortes and Columbushave been increasing. This was particularlyevident duringthe commemorationof 500
years of Columbus' arrivalin America and in the following "day of
the race" anniversarieson the 12th of October. These have now been
questioned by real Indian groups as well as by the groups of "la
Mexicanidad",in such a mannerthat last year the statue of Colum-
16
YolotlGonzdlez Torres
bus which stands in the same avenue as that of Cuauhtemoc, was

vandalized by some people who painted and attemptedto destroy it.
Even if the members of the MCRA frequently maintain that the
Mexica "did not have a religion", in 1993 Tlacaelel inscribed his
kalpulli as a religious association in the general office of religious
affairs in the Ministry of the Interior,a category which was granted
on the same day to the PresbyterianChurch of Glory and Praise,
the Biblical Church of Mexico in the Puebla zone, the Carmelite
Monastery of barefoot nuns of Santa Fe, and so on. To receive an
official inscriptionthey had to presentdocuments"which contain the
fundamentalbasis of their doctrine, giving the number and name of
their associates and theircult ministersas well as theirrepresentatives,
proof of their antiquityand origins".7All these details were published
in the official journal of the MCRA, the lzkalotl, of May 1995. This
document includes the fundamental basis of their beliefs, part of
which we herewith transcribe:
"Our aim is to rescue and preserve the main philosophical principles of the
Mexicayotl (mexican-ness) of our Preamericanforefathers. We search for the
relationshipbetween identity and the cosmic energy of existence which leads
human beings to spiritualimprovement,harmonyand coexistence with nature.
We consider that men are born free, but their life being mortal, transitoryand
relative, it is the function of permanentcollectivity, independentlyof the social
position in which they happened to be born but always with the possibility of
superceding this according to its beneficial effect to the community. As an
organizationit teaches that all human beings are brothersand that all forms of
life are partof the same cosmic family. Thereforewe believe that all expressions
of energy and life in the cosmos are the expression of a Universal Creator,who
is conceived by each individualin a very personalway and form. We emphasize
that we do not worship differentgods, but we do veneratethe expression of the
force of the Great Spirit in Natureand in ourselves. In this sense, we recognize
among others, the following representationsof the Mexicayotl: Tonal Teotl,
our father the sun; Nahui Ollin, time and evolution; Mikiztli, true Medicine;
Quetzalcoatl,cosmic intelligence; Huitzilopochtli,the Will force; Tezcatlipoca,
the Memory;Tonal, the Force of Destiny; Zem Anahuak,the World,our House;
Teoxihuitl, our Temples and Pyramids;Nahual, subconscious;Tloke Nahuakeh,
our Origin; Ome Teotl, our Dual Principle."
"For this purpose the Mexicayotl, designed by our grandfathersthroughthe
Great Spirit of Creationrecovers ceremonies and actions which allow our exis-
17
tence to be guided, for this purposeKaltonalpracticesamong others the following ceremonies":

"Tonalpohualli,Count of time and our destiny which gives the name of our
children."
The tonalpohualli was the 260 days Mesoamerican ritual calendar

with mainly auguralpurpose, working as a sort of astrology for everything but specially for the day on which a child was born was
registeredand accordingly,he was given a name and a destiny.
"Temazcalli. House of purification,where we retake symbolically our mother's
womb to be bor."
This is a steam bath which was used all over Mesoamericabasically

with medicinal ends. Tlacaelel uses it to obtain mystic experiences
and says that it is here where most people have their first vision
(Tlacaelel, p. 265).
"Searchof vision: the right of existence of oneself with creation."
Even if we know thatthe Mexica utilized a greatnumberof techniques

to obtainalteredstates of consciousness (Gonzalez 1989) the one used
by Tlacaelel is a practiceof North AmericanIndianorigin, "which is
obtained through fasts, physical exhaustion in a solitary place, with
the cold of night, naked, at the mercy of the elements, reaching a
special state of consciousness. He must remain four days and nights
drinkingno water and eating no food, as well as having contact with
no person." (Tlacaelel, p. 27).
"SacredPipe, PrayerInstrument."
Another purely Northamericanculturalinstrument.

"Dance. Movements which follow the paths of cosmic forces."
Although dance was a very importantelement among Prehispanic

cultures, as it is still in most cultures, a special emphasis has been
given by the followers of la Mexicanidadto the solar or Aztec chichimec dance of which Velazquez(Ce Acatl, No. 64, p. 16) claims "it is
not a show or spectacle, but an offering to the cosmic forces which
give us life Ilhuica Yoliztli, it has four levels, ... the fourthor Teochi-
18
tontequiza," is a "cosmic movement of creative energy ... (in which)
the dance movements obtain spiritualcommunicationwith the generative powers of life and the dancer becomes a link between Teotl,
the CreativeEnergy and Humanity".Today in Mexico's main square
near the ruins of the Great Temple one can see a group of young
people from the Mexicanidad who gather together to dance every
evening, and also distribute pamphlets proclaiming how historians
have distortedthe real facts about the ancient Mexicans.
Tlacaelel has introducedthe dance of the sun as a very important
element in his ritual practices, which at its climax has the dancer
going around a pole, hanged from it by the muscles of the breasts.
This ritual was also taken from the North American Indians.
The membersof the SupremeCouncil of the religious movementof
Tlacaelel in kaltonalhave to be dancersof the sun. On the 12thof July
1995 in a colloquium with a group of followers of the MCRA and of
the Mexicanidadwith membersof the Academy, held in the National
School of Anthropology (where quite a number of the students are
members of this movement) Tlacaelel announced that a group of
people are being preparedto be priests of his religion.
Probably the most charismaticleader of all the kalpultin is Tlacaelel. He has written an autobiography,along with two anthropologists who call him a "manof medicine"(Tlacaelel, pp. 21-25) which
for them means that "he has the mission to be a spiritualleader of
peace and a guardianof tradition"(ibid. p. 31). This book relates his
life of misery, but at the same time of his effort and present success,
the triumphof the will-power of a child, young man and then an adult
who follows "the path of the four arrows",a mission for which, he
assures us, he was preparedsince he was a child, as he claims that
his father introducedhim to the guardiansof traditionand after that
he felt the "Spiritualcall". He never attendedschool, and only when
he was older did he learn how to read and write. As a child, he escaped from his house and travelledto the North of Mexico where he
spent some time with the Tarahumara(a semi-nomadicethnic group
from the Mountains of the North of Mexico), then he went to other
ethnic regions and supposedly learnt from them. Still very young
19
he traveled as a manual laborer to the United States where he was

convertedto Evangelism and became a very successful pastoramong
his countrymen. Later,he went to work as a cook on a ship and then
entered the army for a period of time.
The myth of the four arrowsis told by Ixtlixochitl, an hispanicized
Indian chroniclerfrom the SeventeenthCentury,who says that when
the leader of the Chichimecs (a tribe related to the Mexicas) arrived
to the Valley of Mexico aroundthe Thirteenthcentury,he threw four
arrowsfrom a mountainto the four regions of the world, as a symbol
of the conquest of the land where he had arrived. Tlacaelel claims
that through mystic experiences he found the mountain where this
story happened,and that on this same mountain,many thousandsof
years ago, the Mexica people received a revelationto go to the four
corers of the continent, bringing their message to all the peoples.
Later on, Tlacaelel himself made this trip, taking his message to the
Indianpeoples of all the Americas,with whom he has now established
permanentlinks.
The groups which form the MCRA, as we mentioned, are neither
homogeneous in their way of thinkingnor in their interests. It is interesting to point out that the presidentof the Center of Cultureand
Mentality of Anahuac was a parliamentarycandidatefor the Ecologist party in the last elections and that the presidentialcandidatefor
this party was at the very least an active sympathizerwith the Mexicanidad, actually participatingin many of the rituals, even though
physically he is white and blond.
As we mentioned before, the dances which are practiced by the
MCRA were certainly adaptedfrom those of the original group we
have called "The Tradition". In all the most importantchurches of
Mexico during the celebration of the feasts of their patron saints
one can see men, women and childrendressed in attractivegarments
and plumed headdresses dancing infatigably in the church atriums
in honor of those particularsaints. The origin of these groups can
be tracedat least to the SeventeenthCentury,even though the legend
says that in July 1531, a shorttime before the apparitionof the Virgin
of Guadalupewhich was said to be in December of the same year,
20
YolotlGonzdlez Torres
a battle was fought between christianizedand pagan Indians,and "at

sunset there were still no victors or vanquished. Before the sun went
down the horizon, darknessfell, and on high, in heaven, a white and
shining cross appeared,and at its side the apostle Santiago riding on
a white horse. Astonished to see such wonder the combatantsput
down their arms and between embraces,they made a peace covenant
and to the shout of 'El es dios' (He is God), the Indians recognized
the Christiancross as a symbol of theirnew faith, performinga dance
as a proof of their veneration"(Manuel M. de la Mata, cit G6mez
Perez, p. 15). Since then, these dances have been called dances "of
conquest"because accordingto their own explanationthey were conquered spiritually and converted to Christianityfrom which arose,
according to Moedano (1984, p. 4) a crisis cult. Taking into consideration the climate of violence which markedSpanish colonialism, it
is not difficultto deduce that the praises given to the VirginMary and
the so-called concord with the Spanish were only forms of avoiding
repression and to fool the colonizer, with the precise aim of being
able to maintainindefinitelythe representationof their dance drama,
whose messages were included in the body and not in the Christian
Saint to which it was supposedto be addressed. One should add that
Indian dances were prohibitedby the Spanish fearing that they may
contain traces of their "idolatrouspractices".
The dancers of the conquest actually have a very old tradition
which they claim goes back to Prehispanictimes, but is covered by
Christiansymbols. This form of adorationis adjustedsuperficiallyto
the Catholic Saints, but it contains a series of prehispanicrites which
have been transmittedby inheritancethroughmany generations.8
The groups of the Traditionhave their own theological concepts
which are variantsof popularCatholicismas well as their own rituals
performedwith music both privatelyand publicly. When they dance
in the atriumsof churches and shrines they always do so in a circle,
in accordance with a Prehispanicmodel. Similarly when they perform their vigils, where they pray,they douse the musical instruments
with incense, mainly the "concha"(a sort of mandoline made from
the shell of an armadillo),they performritual cleansing, sing praise,
21
and sing to the dead inviting them to come and join with the living.
During the dance, the ritual objects, such as the musical instruments,
the banner,the copal or incense, have their own symbolism, for instance the "concha",takes the place of the chimalli, or prehispanic
shield and becomes a mystical protector.They have very strict rules
for the initiates and possess a strong awareness of their rights and
obligations as participantsof a specific community,as well as being
very well organized.
Practicallyall of them are ruled by a Council of Elders who sanction the participants'activities, "accordingto the mannerin which all
Indians are ruled"(these are their own words). They are organizedin
a sort of militaryhierarchyinheritedfrom the Spanish,with four generals, one for each wind, or for each world direction recognized by
the sanctuaryin question. For the groupof the Conquestthese are the
Sacromonte,Chalma, Los Remedios, Guadalupe'sSanctuaryand, in
the center, Santiago-which is where the main temple of Tlatelolco,
the twin city of Tenochtitlan,stood and the same place where the
"Squareof of the Three Cultures"(Aztec, Spanish and Mexican) was
rebuilt about 30 years ago by the Mexican Government,and moreover where the studentsmassacre took place in 1968. Beneath these
generals are the captains, each one of whom leads a "mesa"(table)
which are usually made up of people who are related. Each mesa
considers itself to be independentand self-sufficient. The lieutenant
carries the banner or standard,which representsthe union, conformity and conquest, besides which there are female incense-carriers,
soldiers, warriorsand a "Malinche".9There are no differences between men and women, but hierarchicalposition is usually inherited
and they have perfectly well establishedmechanismsof ascending in
this hierarchy. The main function of the generals is to organize the
four wind festivals, where they go to dance accordingto very precise
rituals. There is also an esoteric knowledge which is only handled
by the leaders.
The words of the orisons or religious songs, quite similarto Indian
bhajans, which they sing in their rituals refer to a numberof Saints,
but they also have songs of conquest. In the latter,Cortes, Cuauhte-
22
moc and the Malinche are mentioned as well as other personages

who took part in the Conquest. Those who have studied these songs
consider them to have a very ancient origin. (Moedano 1984, p. 19).
The people of the Traditionhave undergonea numberof changes.
One can distinguishnow three differentgroups: the "Concheros",the
Conquest and the Aztec. The Concheros founded their own organization in 1922, premised against the rigid hierarchyof the generals,
but still belonging to the same traditionand in part still heeding their
advice. The Concherosare the more orthodoxof the three groups and
dance only in the atriumof the Catholic churches, while the dancers
of Conquest and Aztecs have endured many modifications. For example about 20 or 30 years ago they introducedthe use of pheasant
feathers on their headdresses,which were before only ostrich's, they
also introducedthe huehuetl or vertical Prehispanicdrum. Costume
has also seen changes, becoming more daring. Youngerpeople have
adopted the Prehispanicloincloth, and its design, as well as the design of theircapes, sandalsand headdressesdisplay greatimagination.
Also more recently, young people have began to paint their bodies
and their faces.
One can say that the dance movementprosperedmore in the urban
media among lower class people, the more dispossessed of society,
especially among the immigrantsfrom ruralcommunitieswho, faced
with the dominant culture, sought a form of identity and defense
througha link with the past.
Approximately20 or 30 years ago, middle-class intellectuals and
artists,startedto join the mesas of the dancerswith greaterfrequency,
in search of a spiritualpath, mystical experiences and, no doubt, also
a new identity. Moreovermany "dancers"who were inheritorsof the
traditionrose in social terms, introducedtheirdance in the intellectual
circles as an alternativeto the easterncults. At the same time, when
someone dearto them died, those artistsand intellectualswho claimed
to be atheists, and thereforedid not want to use the customarysocial
Catholic rites, yet still wanted to enter emotionally into the sphere
of magic and the sacred, used the funeral rites of the Tradicionof
"raisingthe cross", performednine days after a person died.
23
According to the Concherosthemselves, their position is quite different from that of the MCRA, in the sense that even if they believe
they preserve traditions from Prehispanictimes, they have merged
these with Christianspiritualityand they are not against the Catholic
religion. Santiago, "the mailman of the four winds", is the patron
saint of the Concheros.
Neverthelessrecently(Moedano 1984, p. 4) a new currenthas taken
hold among them, which attempts to provide a base for the supposition which would institute them as direct inheritorsof the Aztec
dances and consequently of the correspondingAztec war-mystic vision. This represents"a new nativist impulse from some sectors of
these groups (a characteristicwhich has been peculiar to them from
their origin) and on the otherhand is a consequenceof the role played
by the official nationalistic ideology, which takes the Aztecs as the
sum of all Indian virtues and symbols of Mexicanness". In relation
to this new tendency among the dancers of the Tradition,we know
that (Guemez 1993, p. 121) a section of them adoptedthe discourse,
themes and myths of the MCRA, for instance by introducingnew
musical instruments,new symbols in the ritual, also addressingthe
Mexica gods or cosmic forces and gatheringto dance at the monument of Cuauhtemocand archaeologicalsites at key moments of the
sun's path across the sky.
The members of the MRCA repudiate the group of the Tradition because it does not reject the Catholic symbols and because the
main instrumentis the concha, which is not Prehispanic;while the
Traditionconsiders the members of the MCRA to be intransigent,
reactionary,backwardsand racist. A university professor of theatre
who is a member of the traditioncomments that the MCRA adopts
the iconographywithout the signs.
The third group to whom we will refer among the movements of
Mexicanidadis the "New Mexicanidad",the followers of Regina, or
the "Reginos". Undoubtedlythe most recent,this is an eclectic group,
formed by middle and upper class people with university education,
who think in planetaryterms and believe that long-dormantand great
sacred-cosmic forces have been awakenedin Mexico.
24
The founderof this movementis Antonio VelazcoPifia, who through

his publications, which are basically novels, in which he appearsas
the "witness",has createda salvationistNew Eramythology,in which
Mexico, with the help of the Tibetans,plays the role of protagonist.
According to the books of Velazco Pifia, the New Era startedon 21st
of March 1948, coinciding with the age of Pisces and the beginningof
that of Aquarius,as well as the transferenceof the main centralreceptors of universal energy, from the Himalayasto the Mountainranges
of the Americas. Regina is a dakini, or celestial being and was born
in the Valley of Mexico in a village at the foot of the Popocatepetl
and Iztacihuatlmountains,which contain the chakra of Mexico. For
reasons of destiny Regina goes with her family to Tibet where she is
trainedby a Tibetanmonk in esoteric matters. When Tibet is invaded
by China, her family is killed and she hides for a while in a distant
valley where she pursues her spiritualtraining. Eventually found by
the Chinese, she is taken prisonerto China, where again she finds a
way to increase her esoteric knowledge. Finally she is able to come
back to Mexico in 1968, with the aim of bringingthe countryto spiritual awareness. Her first task is to seek for the help of the "Guardians
of the traditionsof Mexico", one Olmec, one Mayan, one Zapotec,
and one Nahua, with whom she forms a small groupfor her greattask
of salvation. Little by little she begins to open the energy paths which
were blocked in the city. By means of a ritual she performedin the
pyramidof the Moon at Teotihuacan,for six months, she managedto
"neutralizethe permanentdream-statewhich dominateshumanbeings
and leads them to confuse reality with chimeric fantasies", leading
Mexico (and apparentlythe whole world) to the events of 1968. The
greatpublic marchesand concentrationsof people in the GreatSquare
of Mexico city, partof the studentmovement,are explained as mystic
congregations in which Regina performedrituals as part of her plan
to awaken the spiritualenergy of Mexico. One of her activities was
to light an invisible flame of light in the interiorof the pyramidof the
Sun in Teotihuacan,thus reactivatingthe energy of the old city, informing her companionsthat all that remainedwas to breakopen the
seals which had been closed when Mexico fell into a spiritualdeca-
25
dence. This task would be completed by Tibetans. As Regina failed

in one of her attemptsto open completely the sacred energy of Mexico, she decided to sacrifice herself along with 400 of her followers
in the massacre of Tlatelolco on the 2nd of October of 1968.10
In the seventies archaeoastronomicstudies began to flourish,when
the importanceof the annual movements of the sun and other stars
and their relation to archaeologicalbuildings began to be broadcast.
First it was discovered that in the so called pyramid of Kukulkan
in Chichen Itza in Yucatan,but only during the equinoxes the form
of a snake made of light appears on one of the sides of the stairs,
then several caves and otherplaces were discoveredto have gnomons
for studying the passing of the sun throughoutthe year. When the
public came to know about this, the appearanceof the snake of light
became a curiosity and small groups of people came to see it, but
later more and more people gatheredat the different archaeological
sites to receive energy.
Accordingto Velazco Pifia, "thewitness",some followers of Regina
began to congregate at Teotihuacan,even though the seals had not
been broken and the energy was not yet flowing. On the 3rd of July
of 1989 the Dalai Lama was invitedto Mexico to performa ceremony
on the pyramid of the Sun during which he "took away one of the
seals which had preventedthe energy from flowing". He also participated in an ecumenical ceremony which took place in the Cathedral
of Mexico City. Afterwards,on the 21st of March 1992, seven Tibetan monks from the monasteryof GandenShartsecame to Mexico
to remove the last seal of the pyramid,in the presenceof about40,000
people, to the disgust of a group of some extremist members of the
MCRA, who did not want any foreigners to performrituals in their
pyramids. Neverthelessand accordingto Velazco Piiia, the ritualwas
successfully completed and from that moment onwards the energy
"can be used from any place on earth by all people who are able to
atune their own vibrationswith those which flow from Teotihuacan"
(1994, p. 64). This year at the spring equinox around200,000 people dressed in white came to receive energy at Teotihuacan. White
according to Velazco Pifia is the color worn by the Olmecs and is
26
used in their ritualsby the people of the New Mexicanidadand their

sympathizers.
This movement has also had an impact in Spain. In 1991 several
people, including Velazco Pifia were invited to give lectures related
to mystical themes at the Menendez Pelayo University. At this time,
along with some groups from Europe such as the Rainbow Warriors,
the Gaia Organization,Defence of the Earthand other spiritualecological groups, they preparedthe reopening of the spiritualpath to
Santiago de Compostela. To this event, which took place in July
1992, they invited a choreographer,who was a Regina follower who
prepared a special Tibeto-Mexican dance called citlamina, as well
as the (female) captain of the Aztec mesa of the Traditionto teach
a group of Spanish people to dance. She founded several Spanish
"mesas" at this event and as a result, in the feast of the Sanctuary
of Chalma, this year, in the State of Mexico, which is where all the
dancers who have not been prehispanizedmeet, 40 Spanish dancers
came along bringing their pendantsfrom Seville and Barcelona.
Even though the three aforementionedgroups have little to do with
one another, they share a belief that Mexico is the possessor of a
great spiritualpower-force. They have elected the same places which
they agree are chargedwith symbolic meaning or power, performing
their ceremonies sometimes together or on their own. Out of this a
very eclectic group is merging which intends to erect Mexico as the
spiritualnavel of the world.
Even though the members of the MCRA as well as the followers
of Regina are separatedby 502 years of hispanizationand mexicanization from the ancient Prehispanicculturewhich, in fact, they have
nothing to do with, they have created their own symbolic universe
based on knowledge gleaned from books. From these books on Prehispanic cultures,they select and reinterpretwhateverthey wish, and
have made up symbols and ritualpracticesto which they attributeindisputableauthenticity.The membersof the MCRA assertthemselves
as direct inheritorsof the Prehispanicculture, interpretingit in their
own way and discardingthe explanationsof the academic specialists,
even though in reality they sprungfrom that knowledge, and forge a
27
past which is consequentwith the presentmoment.Theyabsolutelyreject all aspects deriving from hispanic cultureand Catholicism,some
of them denying the concept of "Mestizo"and thus disqualify 2000
years of western culture, besides acting in an aggressive-defensive
manner out of social resentmentand becoming intolerantwith people who do not accept their ideological premises. They set up an
exacerbatednationalismwhich could potentially lead to facism.
Members of the new mexicanidad,the followers of Regina, place
their doctrine within a planetary frame, borrowing concepts from
Catholicism and the ancient Prehispaniccultures,but also from esoteric doctrines, as they believe it is the age of Aquariuswith all that
this implies. These range from Christianity,Hindu doctrines,like the
chakras of the earth, or Tibeto-Buddhistones, such as the dakini and
also from the hermetictradition.They make use of concepts such as
"the guardiansof Mexican tradition"of the four main Mesoamerican
cultures;they also adopt ecological concepts of the New Age, which
hold the earth to be a living being. They accept that their's is a
syncretism by the fact that they establish it as a planetarydoctrine.
Some of the dancersof the Traditionhave been influencedby one or
other of the aforementionedmovementsof the mexicanidad,although
as a group they do not consider themselves part of the movement.
They are in reality the only ones who truly have a very old tradition
and perhapsthey preservetraitsof the Prehispanicreligiosity,in many
of their rituals and conceptions, even though as we have said they
were concealed by the Catholic religion.
None of the three movementshere describedever attemptedsocial
revindications. The members of the MCRA wish to bring back the
paradiseof the past which they have idealized and which they regard
as a very just society. None of the three have equality as their banner
and they propose neitherto fight the presentstate of things, nor a solidaritywith the Indians. There is actuallyno real racial fight between
Indians and Creoles or whites, as we have seen all the members are
actually mestizo and revivalist. We mentionedthat the founderof the
MCRA began his career as an organizerin a Creole movement and
afterwardsadopteda racist point of view against foreignersand Jews
28
who were identified with Marxists. There is a clear ethnocentrictendency and everything hinges upon the Mexica culture, ignoring the
fact that there are at least 56 other Indian ethnic groups. Recently,
however, some of the people of the MCRA are including in their
stated positions that to be of the mexicanidadis to be universal, and
moreover,they are now trying also to make their own the revindications of the Indians and join together with truly Indian movements
in their protests against the celebration of the day of the race and
of course in the 500 year celebrationof the "discovery"of America.
Even if most of the leaders are Spanish speakersthey have learnt to
speak the Nahuatl language, and have as one of their prime goals the
diffusion of this language and at the end its restorationas a national
language, without taking into considerationthe other 56 Indian languages spoken, not to mentionthe 90% of people who speak Spanish.
These movements may be consideredpropheticin the sense that they
have the mission to follow Cuauhtemoc'smandateand Regina had as
her mission the restorationof the sacredenergy of Mexico which was
nationalistsalvationistby the way the concept of traditionis handled.
The movement of the New Mexicanidadis more apolitical, even
though Regina makes the student demands of 1968 her own and
Velazco Pifia deeply critizes the Presidentand the Ministerof Interior
who they assert caused the repressionand the studentmassacres.
There is no doubtthat all these groupsare searchingfor an identity,
whether this is "just the subjectivepoint of view of the social actors
concerning their unity and their symbolic frontiers, regardingtheir
relative persistence in time, as well as concerning their situation in
the world, that is to say, in their social space" (Gimenez p. 24).
Direccion de Etnologia y
AntropologiaSocial
InstitutoNacional
de Antropologiae Historia
Ex Convento del Carmen
Av. Revoluci6n 4 y 6 San Angel
C.P. 01000 Mexico D.F., Mexico
YOLOTLGONZALEZTORRES
29
* Partof this paperwas read as key lecture of the XVIIth Congress of the IAHR.
1 The Mexicas or Aztecs were the people who, in 1321, founded their city
Tenochtitlan on the site of the present Mexico City. They became the rulers of
most of what is now the Mexican Republic.
2 Sejournee claims that the capital of the Toltecs, Tula, was what is now Teotihuacan.
3 Juarezissued some laws which includedrestrictionsto the
power of the Church,
such as: freedom of cults; nationalizationof the propertiesof the Church;prohibition
of externalmanifestationsof religious worship;civil birthand marriageregistration;
no religious teachingat the basic level. Priestswere not allowed to vote or participate
in political activities and all these laws were in place until 1992.
4 Gimenez (p. 34) says that they can be called "sects", as in their majoritythey
come from the United States and have surged from a matrix common to Western
Christianity. Most of times they have their origin in a chain of schisms from a
"MotherChurch".
5 We have not been able to trace who
exactly were these elders.
6 The Mexica believed in five ages or suns which were destroyed by different
cataclysms. We are living in the fifth sun.
7 In 1992 some articles of the Mexican Constitution related to
religion were
with
of owning
be
to
exist
as
a
civil
in
order
to
able
and
so,
entity
rights
changed,
to
be
after
association"
had
and
so
on,
registered
every "religious
completing
property
certain requirementswhich included the presentationof the mentioneddocuments.
8 Carlos Jimenez, an archaeologistand a member of the "Concheros"invited me
to some of their rituals and gave me much information.
9 Malinche is the name of an Indianwoman who was given as a presentto Cortes
by a cacique from the South of Mexico and who acted as interpreter.She played a
key role in the Conquest of Mexico.
10 On the 2nd of October of 1968 there was a big gatheringof people, mainly
students, in the square of Tlatelolco; suddenly soldiers and policemen dressed in
civilian clothes startedfiring at people killing a great numberof people.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aren, S.W.
1979 The Man-eatingMyth. Anthropologyand Anthropophagy.Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo
1993 "Introducci6nNuevos perfiles de nuestra cultura",in: Nuevas identidades
culturales en Mexico. Pensar Cultura,CNCA, Mexico, pp. 9-22.
30
Boturini, Benaducci Lorenzo

1990 Historia general de la America Septentrional. UNAM, M6xico.
Ferr6 D'Amare, Ricardo
1994 Derribar las Tentaciones. CNCA. Gobierno del Estado de Campeche, ProgramaCulturalde la FronteraSur. Institutode Culturade Campeche. M6xico.
Garcia Quintana,Josefina
1971 Cuauhtemocen el siglo XIX. UNAM, M6xico.
Gim6nez, Gilberto
1993 "Cambiosde identidady cambios de profesi6n religiosa",in: Nuevas Identidades culturales de Mexico. CNCA, M6xico, pp. 23-54.
G6mez P6rez, Baltazar
1993 "La danza de la pluma",Ce Acatl 9. Mexico, pp. 15, 16.
Gonzalez Torres,Yolotl
1980 El sacrificio humanoentre los mexicas. FC.E. M6xico.
1989 "Altered States of conciousness and ancient Mexican ritual techniques",in:
Shamanism:past and present. Istor books 1-2 Eds. M. Hoppal and O.J. von
Zadowsky,Fullerton,Budapest-LosAngeles, pp. 349-353.
Guemez, Lina Odena
1984 Movimiento ConfederadoRestauradordel Anahuac. Cuadernosde la Casa
Chata 97. CISINA, Mexico D.F.
1993 "En busca de la mexicanidad",in: Nuevas identidadesculturales de Mexico.
Pensamientoy Cultura. CNCA, M6xico, pp. 89-125.
Itzkalotl. Resurgimientodel Anahuac
1995 Organotrimestral.Afio 32. Vol. 31, No 144, 145 and 146. Mexico, Tenochtitlan.
Ixtlixochitl, Fernandode Alva
1975 Obras Hist6ricas. Ed., introductorystudy and documentaryappendixby Edmundo O'Gorman. UNAM. Institutode InvestigacionesHist6ricas. Mdxico.
Lanternari,Vittorio
1961 Movimientosreligiosos de Libertady Salvacion. Ed. Seix Barral. Barcelona.
Moedano, Gabriel
1984 "La danza de los concheros en Queretaro",Universidad,no. 23/24. Noviembre. Queretaro.pp. 3-10.
1986 "El tema de la conquista en la tradici6nliterariamusical de los concheros",
Memoria del Primer Congreso de Musicologia. Soc. Mexicana de Musicologia, M6xico. pp. 62-74.
Ortiz Echaniz, Silvia
1990 Una religiosidad popular El espiritualismo trinitario mariano. Col Cientifica. INAH.
31
Robbins, Thomas and Anthony,Dick

1987 "New Religions. An Overview",in: Encyclopedia of Religion. Colliers and
McMillan Publishers,New York. Vol. X, pp. 390-405.
Sejournee, Laurette
1957 Pensamientoy Religi6n en el Mexico Antiguo. F.C.E. M6xico.
Tlacaelel, Fco. Jimenez, Luengas, Beatriz, Zenzez, Gertrudisand Henze Patricia
1992 Nahui Mitl (Las cuatro flechas). UAM, Unidad Xochimilco, M6xico.
Velazco Pifia, Antonio
1987 Regina. Ed. Jus. Mexico.
1990 El despertar de Teotihuacan.Ed. Jus. Mexico.
1994 El retorno de lo sagrado. Circulo Cuadrado.Mexico.
Velazquez, Romo, David, Mazatzin and EstradaGarcia,Jaime, Metihuitzin
1994 "Los niveles de la Danza Azteca Chichimeca", Ce Acatl 64. Septiembre,
Mexico, p. 161.
Warman,Arturo
1972 Danzas de Moros y Cristianos. Sepsetentas. Mexico.
CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF SACRED

SPACE IN VARANASI*
HANS BAKKER
Summary
It is widely believed that Varanasi (Benares) ranks among the oldest holy cities
on earth. Archaeological and textual sources, however, begin only to testify to the
constructionof sacred space in the first millennium AD. A significant discrepancy
is found between the archaeological data (mainly seals) and early textual sources
belonging to the 5th to 8th centuries. While seals provide us with the names of
temples thatapparentlywere frequentedby the ordinarypilgrim,the oldest Mahatmya
text thathas recentlybecome available,threechaptersof the 'original'Skandapurdna,
depicts Varanasias a place of ascetics and yogis. The spheresof devotion and worldrenouncingare furthercomplicatedin the 11th and 12th centuries,when Varanasiis
made the political capital of the Gahadavaladynasty. Inscriptionsreveal yet another
dimension of sacred space, that of state ritual. After the destructionof the town by
the Muslim conquerors,a process of reconstructionsets in duringthe 13th and 14th
centuries, resulting eventually in the sacred Varanasias we know it today.
Construction (First Millennium AD)

The distinguished scholar of traditional Indian law and customs,
P.V. Kane, begins his description of Kasi (i.e. Varanasi) in his magnum opus The History of Dharmasastra (Poona 1973 [2nd ed.],
Vol. IV, p. 618) by articulating a generally held view concerning
this town.
There is hardly any city in the world that can claim greater antiquity,greater
continuityand greaterpopularvenerationthanBanaras. Banarashas been a holy
city for at least thirty centuries.
It seems worthwile to reconsider Kane's claim by studying the process

of construction and continuous reconstruction of Varanasi's sacred
space in the light of archaeological and textual evidence.
The first thing we have to call in doubt is the antiquity of the town.
On account of archaeological excavations (at Rajghat) it may be taken
NUMEN,Vol.43
Sacred Space in Vdrdnasi
33
for certain that the earliest settlement of the site can not be pushed
back furtherthan the 8th century BC.1 Owing to its strategicallocation, at the junction of two rivers,the Ganges and its contributarythe
Varanasi river (also called Varana),2the place gradually developed
into an importantcommercial centre, and this may have been one
of the factors that attractedthe Buddhist order to its neighbourhood
(Sarath, 5 km northof the presentcity) in the 5th centuryBC. However,judging by archaeologicalas well as literarytestimonythe town
itself had no special religious significance within the Brahmanical
tradition(beyond a local one) before the beginning of the Christian
era. We thereforemay pass over the first ten centuries of 'holiness'
as claimed by Kane.
Actually, it is not before the end of the 3rd century AD that we
see a shift in Hindu religion with respect to Varanasi appearin our
historical sources. The archaeologistsreport the finding of the first
seals with Sivaite emblems,3 whereas the Mahdbhdratasection on
pilgrimage (Tirthayatrdparvan)in its grandall-India scheme of holy
places assigns a modest place to a Siva sanctuary,Vrsadhvaja,with
annexe bathing pool (Kapilahrada)at the edge of Varanasi.4
The transformationof commercial, i.e. profane, space into sacred
space, which, incidentally,was by no meansdetrimentalto commerce,
took place in the fourth to sixth centuries of the Christianera, when
North India was united in the empire of the Guptadynasty. One may
well speculate on the question of to what extent this transformation
was facilitated by the fact that Varanasi was a commercial not a
political centre, a question that is relevant to all Indian holy places
and to which we shall returnbelow.5
Materially the constructionof sacred space is attested by a great
variety of seals mainly issued by Sivaite shrines, of which Avimuktesvara was the most prominent.6That there was at least one great
Visnu temple ensues from the image of Krsna holding aloft Mt Govardhan,which was found near the BakariaKund.7Conceptuallythis
transformationwas expressedby a myth thatmade its firstappearance
in a layer of texts (Puranapaicalaksana) that may possibly be dated
Hans Bakker
34
to the 5th or 6th century. The contents of this myth may be shortly
told as follows.8
Siva's mother-in-law,Mena, criticizes her son-in-law, whose poor-man's(daridra) lifestyle on the Himalaya amidst ascetics who assume all kinds of forms
(visvarupa) she finds less suitable for her daughter. Parvatitherefore asks Siva
to find anotherplace to live. Siva sets his mind on Varanasi, which is by that
time a prosperouscity under the reign of king Divodasa.
Siva instructsa ganesvara, namedNikumbha,to trickDivodasaout of Varanasi. Nikumbha appears to a barberin a dream and promises him prosperityif
he constructsa shrine in the city-gate (nagaridvdr),installs his image and starts
worshipping him. Nikumbhabestows great prosperityon all his worshippers,
but when the wife of Divodasa (Suyasas) comes and asks for a son he refuses to
comply with her wish. Divodasabecomes angry and destroysthe shrine(sthana)
of the ganapati Nikumbha. The lattercurses the city to be empty (for a thousand
years). During this period of emptiness a demon (raksasa), named Ksemaka,
lives in Varanasi.9
When Divodasa and his subjectshave left Varanasi,Siva moves in and builds
his residence (pada). Parvatidoes not like the place (grhavismaydt,because of
uneasiness with the new situation?),but Siva declares that he will never leave
Varanasi. His palace (grha) is thereforeknown as 'Avimukta.'10
After Divodasahas left Varanasihe conquersthe Haihayakingdomof Bhadrasrenya and takes his residence in a beautiful city at the Gomati river. Divodasa
begets a son on Drsadvati,viz. Pratardana.Pratardanahas two sons, Bhargaand
Vatsa, and the latter's son is Alarka.
When the thousandyears since the curse of Nikumbhahave passed, Alarka
kills the demon Ksemaka and returnsto Varanasi. Thus after three generations
(Divodasa, Pratardana,and Vatsa) Varanasiis again the capital of the dynasty
of the Kasis (kasikula). Alarka reigns for a very long period and finally is
succeeded by his son Samnati,etc.
We possess an eye-witness account from the 4th decade of the 7th

century by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who tells us
the outcome of this transformationprocess. He observed the following,
The capital (Varanasi)[...] is densily populated. The families are very rich and
in the dwellings are objects of rare value. The disposition of the people is soft
and humane, and they are earnestlygiven to study. They are mostly unbelievers
[that is Hindus], a few reverencethe law of the Buddha. The climate is soft, the
crops abundant,the trees flourishing, and the underwood thick in every place.
[...]
35
In the capital there are twenty Deva [i.e. Hindu]temples, the towers and halls
of which are of sculpturedstone and carved wood. The foliage of trees combine
to shade whilst pure streams of water encircle them. The statue of the Deva
Mahesvara[i.e. Siva], made of (native copper), is somewhat less than 100 feet
high. Its appearanceis grave and majestic, and appearsas though really living.
[...]11
They honour principallyMahesvara. Some cut their hair off, others tie their
hair in a knot, and go naked without clothes, they cover their bodies with ashes,
and by the practice of all sorts of austeritiesthey seek to escape from birth and
death.12
It is one of the peculiaraspects of Varanasi'sdevelopmentinto a holy

city, an aspect that would be appreciatedby dialectical thinkers-to
whom India has much to offer anyway-that along with a growth in
prosperityand holiness the town became the meeting place of yogis
and ascetics who by their mortificationsnegated all human values.
This latter characteristicas described by Hiuen Tsang is confirmed by a literary source that has recently become available. In
a Skandapurdnapreserved in Nepalese palm-leaf manuscripts(referred to as sP)13-the oldest of which is dated AD 81014-of which
we are preparing a critical edition,15three chapters are concerned
with Varanasi and its mythology (adhydyas 26, 29, 30). Herewith
we have a text at our disposal that with a high degree of probability
can be dated in the 7th or 8th century AD. It repeats the mythology
of king Divodasa (here called a great yogi and worshipperof Siva)
in slightly modified form and depicts Varanasi as a city of yogis,
especially of the Pasupataorder (sP 29.62-73). Practisingyoga here
is said to secure release, but also living here till one dies is enough
to attain moksa (sP 29.91-97, 30.66-75). The town is designated as
the holy field of Avimukta,and in it the sanctuaryof Avimuktesvara
is hailed as the most important,because all holy places (of North
India) join the Gafiga on its way to Varanasiand assemble there (sP
29.77-90).
It comes somewhat as a surprisethat, with the exception of Avimuktesvara,all holy places of Varanasimentionedin this Skandapurana-about 13 linga sanctuariesand 3 bathingplaces (see Table 1)16are unknown from the seals, whereas the sanctuariesmentioned on
Hans Bakker
36
TABLE 1
Holy places according to SP 29.9-61
svayambhulinga
1 Gopreksesvara
2 Vrsadhvaja
tirtha
a Kapilahrada
b Bhadradoha
installed linga
3 Upasantasiva
(by the gods)
4 Hiranyagarbha
(by Brahmaand Visnu)
5 Sva(r)linesvara
6 Vyaghresvara
7 Jyesthasthana
8 Avimuktesvara
9 Sailesvara
11 Madhyamesvara
c Confluence of rivers
Varanasiand Gafiga
d (Siddhasthana)
(by Himavat)
10 Samgamesvara
(by Brahma)
12 SukreSvara
(by Skanda)
13 Jambukesa
various lingas erected
by the Grahas
the seals are not referredto again in any text that can be dated before
the llth/12th century.17A possible explanationof this phenomenon
may be that the temples that issued seals to their visitors fell into anothercategory,i.e. had a more general,mass characterthanthose sites
that were specified in texts that originatedamong circles of sectarian
(i.e. Pasupata)Saivas.18 The holiness of most of the places described
in the SP is based on their connexion with ascetic achievements,the
merit of which achievements they in turn bestow upon their visitors. They have little to do with ordinarydevotional practices such
as snana, ddna, and puja. Evidently Varanasi's sacred space had
alreadyby the 7th century differentiatedinto two mutualpermeating
but nevertheless contrastingreligious spheres, one devotional, cater-
37
ing for emotional needs, for the benefit of those pursuinghappiness

and religious merit, the other geared to the transmundaneaims of
ascetics and the moribund. It is probably this unique interlacement
that made Varanasiinto the holiest city of the land.
A text section that, in its present form, on text-critical grounds
can be said to be somewhat later than the SP19(datable to the 9th10th centuries), namely chapters 180 to 185 of the Matsyapurdna
(MP), furtheremphasizes the dark aspect of the sacred city. It passes
over almost completely the Siva temples and bathing places in the
Ganges20-though eulogizing Varanasias the 'the holy field of Avimukta' (Avimuktaksetra),it is silent on the Avimuktesvarasanctuary
as such-but instead focuses on Avimuktaksetraas the primordeal
cremation-ground(smasdna, MP 184, TVKpp. 22ff.). The first mention of Varanasi's cremation grounds is in the Mdrkandeyapurana
(8.4 and 8.106), which tells Hariscandra'sdoleful destiny when he
was forced to work there. It seems that in this text, which most probably is earlier than the MP, there is as yet no religious significance
attached to the cremation ground as such. According to (an interpolation in?) the Matsyapurdna,21however, here, above the funeral
pyre, Siva's palace hovers in mid-airunattainableto those who lack
discipline. This emphasis links up with the sinister side of the Saiva
ascetic tradition,making Varanasi one of its headquarters,a development that may have taken place between the 6th and 9th centuries
AD. Dying and being cremated within this space secure release of
all human sorrow. And here the two spheres, the devotional and the
transmundane,intersect: in the hour of death the compassionateSiva
mutters graciously the saving formula into the (right) ear of the believer, the formula that shall open the gates of paradise for him or,
on a more sophisticatedlevel, shall foreverput a halt to the circle of
his phenomenalappearances.22
The City Flourishing (11th-12th CenturiesAD)
There is no reason to doubt that at the turn of the millennium
Varanasi was a crowded place, attractingall sorts and conditions of
Hans Bakker
38
people. The traditionalcommercial activity, boosted by the pilgrimage business and the industryof the dying, may have made the town
into one of the richestbazaarsof NorthernIndia, a fact thatdid not go
by unnoticed to maraudingbands of Turkishwarriorswhich infested
NorthernIndia after sultan Mahmudof Ghazni had pointed the way.
In AD 1033 the 'governor' of Hindustan,Ahmad Niyaltigin, arrived
at Banaras. Abu 1-Fazlal-Bayhaqi'sdescriptionruns thus:
The army could remain there from morning to mid-day prayerbecause of the
peril. The marketsof the drapers,perfumers,andjewellers, were plundered,but
it was impossible to do more. (E&D, II pp. 123f.)
No doubt Hindu sanctuarieswere desecratedas well, but the damage

was limited as yet.
Apparentlyin responseto the Muslim threatfrom the west, Varanasi
was turned into a stronghold of Hinduism, and, significantly, was
made into the actual seat of political power of the mightiest ruling
dynasty of North India, the Gahadavalas,at the end of the 11th century.
As has been noted above, Varanasihad evolved into a holy place
without being or developing into a political capital, and this appears
to have been in conformity with the normal situation in South Asia,
where sacred and political space customarilyhave different centres.
Hermann Kulke's explanation of this phenomenon is that, if both
were to coincide, rulersover the holy town would have to admittheir
enemies into their own political centreof power,due to considerations
of dharma.23If territorycoincides or is identified with sacred space,
wars in defence or conquest of this territory could be defined as
holy wars. Yet, the concept of holy war was conspicuously absent
in traditional Indian political theory,24and so was the practice of
propagatingwar by appealingto religious sentimentsotherthanthose
conforming to general principles of dharma. Hence the question
may be raised why the Gahadavalasmoved their actual seat of power
towardsthe sacredVaranasiratherthan staying within the prestigious
imperial capital Kanauj,where they had seized power and which lay
within their territory,but was later only formally acknowledged as
such.25
Sacred Space in Vdranasi
39
This might have been caused by the fact that Kanaujlay in ruins
after having been sacked by the Ghaznaviteinvaders (AD 1018 by
sultan Mahmud, AD 1086-90 by prince Mahmufd,governor of the
Punjab). But it could have been rebuilt,just as Varanasirecovered
from its first contact with Muslim forces. A more plausible explanation for the Gahadavalas' deviation from customary practice in
choosing Varanasias their power base may be sought in the circumstance that the nature of the enemy had changed, an enemy which
held completely different views on territorialwarfareas well as on
religion. That the Gahadavalaswere well aware of this from the beginning ensues from their levying the 'Turks'tax' (turuskadanda),a
war tax that is withoutparallelin India.26In other words, the move to
Varanasimay be viewed as part of the Gahadavalas'reaction to the
challenge of Islam, a strategyto enhance prestige, boost morale and
rally support. Already in their firstknown inscriptionthe Gahadavala
kings proclaimedthemselves as the 'protectorsof the (North) Indian
holy places' (tirtha), to begin with those in Kasi, and boasted of their
own piety.27
As a resultVaran.asi'ssacredspace was interwovenwith a thirdpattern, that of religious royal ceremony. Apparentlya sanctuaryarose
at the confluence of the Varanasi(Varana)river and the Ganges, the
Visnu/Krsnatemple of Adikesava, in which a new image (pratimd)
was erected between AD 1090 and 1093. Candradevadecorated it
with gold and jewels, after he had (earlier?) donated gifts of gold
studded with pearls to Visnuhari-an old sanctuary in Ayodhya,28
the town where the land grant was made.29Adikesavanear the confluence, in the north of Varanasi,became an imperialtemple, where
the Gahadavalaprinces, afterhaving bathedin the Adikesavaghatta,3?
performedtheir 'state' ritual and where the crown prince Jayacandra
was initiated in the worship of Krsnain AD 1168.31
Thanks to royal patronage,many more shrines and bathing places
came to the fore.32The greatestof the Gahadavalakings, Govindacandra (AD 1109-1155), recordedin VS 1166 (AD 1109) that he, while
still crown prince, in fame resembling Rama, son of Dasaratha,owing to his unparalleledand repeatedsports (kridd) on the battlefield,
40
Hans Bakker
had managed to pacify the 'Hammira'(i.e. his Muslim adversary).33

By his wife, Kumaradevi,he had himself declared an incarnationof
Visnu.
Hari (Visnu), the only one capable of protecting the earth, who had been
called upon by Hara (Siva) to protect Varanasi against the wicked Turkish
(Turuska) warrior, was therefore born again here under the celebrated name
of Govindacandra.34
The Gahadavalasleft us with many inscriptions and from these we

learn the names of the holy sites that witnessed religious state rituals and kingly ostentation, but it is noteworthy that they for the
greaterpart are unknown from earlier sources and that, for instance,
Avimuktesvarais not among them, althoughVaranasiis occasionally
designated as the Avimuktaksetra(e.g. EI IV, 113, 114, 132). Are we
to conclude that the lattersanctuaryhad receded into the background,
or are we concerned with again anotherperspectivein which the sacred space of the holy town was conceived? I am inclined to the
second alternativewhich is apparentlyendorsed by various sources
pertainingto this period.35
A minister of Govindacandra,Laksmidhara,composed an encyclopaedia(nibandha)of traditionalHindulaw (dharma),the Krtyakalpataru. In the section dealing with Hindu pilgrimage,the Tirthavivecanakdnda (TVK), about half of the text (124 out of 264 pages of
the edition) is concerned with a detailed description of Varanasi.
Here we encounter again almost all the holy sites that figured in
our diverse source materials-Avimukta (linga) being the foremost
of them-and, in addition, more than two hundredsanctuariesmade
their first appearancein a long quotationfrom an otherwiseunknown
text attributingitself to the Lingapurdna.36Evidently,the sacred network of the town had evolved into such a maze that the need was
felt for a comprehensive survey. This survey, however, is, in contrast with later mdhdtmyatexts, a topographicalenumerationrather
than an organized structurethat would arrangethe holy spots and
deities in conformity with a groundplan reflecting a mythic, cosmic
or whateverideal reality.37
Sacred Space in Vdranasi
41
Destruction and Reconstruction

Composed of devotional, transmundaneand political elements the
sacred space of Varianasihad turnedinto a religious metropoliswhich
could not but exert a fatal attractionon the intransigentforces of
Islamic invaders.
If, as has been arguedabove, the Gahadavalashad chosen Varanasi
as their capital in orderto profitfrom the (religious) prestige that was
connected with it, this strategyfailed. It did not bring them the support of their neighbouring (Hindu) kings. On the contrary, at the
eastern borderthey were confrontedwith a new powerful enemy, the
dynasty of the Senas, whose king Laksmanasena(AD 1179-1206)
claimed a victory over the king of Kasi, a success that in all likelihood refers to his conquest of Magadha.38The Gahadavalasfor
their part did not come to the rescue of their western neighbours,the
Cahamanas,whose army under king Prthvirajawas destroyed in the
second battle of Tarain(AD 1192); consequently,one year later, they
were themselves defeated by the Ghiri army at Chandawarand Jayacandra, 'Raja of Benares, the chief of idolatryand perdition'(E&D II,
p. 223) was killed on the battlefield. According to the Chronicle of
Hasan Nizami the victorious troops of Qutb al-Din Aybak plundered
the state treasuryat Asni and,
proceededtowardsBenares, which is the centre of the countryof Hind, and here
theydestroyednearlyone thousandtemples,andraisedmosqueson theirfounandthefoundations

dations;andtheknowledgeof thelawbecamepromulgated,
of religion were established. (E&DII, p. 223)
It is perhaps one of the most remarkable,if not tragic qualities of

sacred space that it holds a special attractionfor believers of other
religions. From the 13th century the Hindus had to share it with the
Muslims, who selected the Hindus' most holy spots to build their
mosques, and this has been a source of endless conflict until today.
Duringthe firstfifty years following the collapse of the Hindukingdoms of North India,the unstablesituationseems not to have allowed
the Muslims to build permanentstructureson the ruins of Varanasi,in
spite of Hasan Nizami's assertionto the contrary.Everywherepock-
42
Hans Bakker
ets of resistence remainedand we do even have epigraphicalevidence

dating from c. AD 1212 that testifies to the erection of a sacrificial
post and a pillar of victory by a Sena king of Bengal, Visvarupa,in
the middle of Varanasi,designated as the holy field (ksetra) of Siva
Visvesvara,the 'Lord of All.'39
The name 'Visvesvara' occurs marginallyin the 12th-centurysurvey of Laksmidhara[TVK(LP),p. 93], but this sanctuarywas to become the main symbol of the Hindu response to Muslim dominance.
Thus was the beginning of the rise to holiness and fame of Visvesvara
or Visvanatha,in the Hindus' darkesthour, when their rulers tried to
recover from their deep humiliation. Reconstructionof sacred space
had begun.40
The first reaction of the new Muslim authoritieswas to build a
mosque on the hill of Visvesvara. This appearsto have taken place
during the short reign of the daughterof sultan Iltutmish, Raziyya
(AD 1236-40), and her mosque still stands today, known as Razia's
Mosque.41The furtherhistory of Visvesvara is one of stubbornness
and bigotry.
Before the end of the 13th centurythe sanctuaryof Visvesvarahad
re-emerged somehow at anotherlocation, 'probablya short distance
down the hill in the vicinity of AvimuktesvaraTemple, an area it
soon came to dominate' (EB,p. 133). This ensues from an inscription that records the building of a temple for the god Padmesvara
by someone called Padmasadhu,'at the gate of Visvesvara' (visvesvaradvdri)in AD 1296. The inscriptionis found in the Lal Darwaza
Masjid in Jaunpur,which was built in AD 1447.42The resurgenceof
the Visvesvara temple is confirmed by a Jaina author, Jinaprabhasuri (AD 1332), who distinguishedfour districts of Varanasi,one of
which is that of the Visvanathatemple.43
According to Laksmidhara[TVK(LP) p. 109], the original location
of Avimuktesvarawas a little north of a well, which probablyrefers
to the famous Jfianavapiof today. The Avimuktesvaratemple, which
consequently must have occupied the spot of the present-dayJfiana
Vapi Mosque (built in the time of Aurangzeb),had been, in all likelihood, destroyed in AD 1193. Since the site of Visvesvara itself
Sacred Space in Vdrtnasi
43
had become occupied by Razia's Mosque (AD 1236-40), the Hindus

evidently made the decision to constructa new sanctuaryon the site
of Avimuktesvara,referringto it as Visvesvararatherthan Avimuktesvara. The new AvimuktesvaraNVisvesvara
temple was destroyed
again in the first half of the 15th century, when materials of it and
of the adjacentcomplex of Padmesvarawere used in the building of
mosques in the newly founded capital Jaunpurof the Sharqidynasty,
as is attestedby the inscriptionof Padmasadhureferredto above.
The rest of the historyof the Visvesvaratemple may be summarized
in the words of Diana Eck (EB, p. 134f.).
The reconstructionof the VishveshvaraTemple,perhapson the most magnificent
scale ever, was undertakenby NarayanaBhattain 1585. [...] The glorious day
of this new VishvanathaTemple, which included the smaller shrine of Avimukteshvara, was very brief indeed. In less than a century, in 1669, it was torn
down at the command of the Mughal EmperorAurangzeb. Half-dismantled,it
became the foundationfor the presentJfianaVapi Mosque. [...]
In 1777 the Queen of Indore (AhalyabaiHolkar) sponsoredthe construction
of the present temple.
To returnto the end of the 13th century,evidentily some sort of sanctuary had arisen again by that time on the ancient site of Avimuktesvara, now dedicated to the 'Lord of All,' Visvesvara. And in spite
of likely obstruction by the authorities, many more minor shrines
may have re-emerged. In these circumstancesit is no surprise that
emphasis was laid on Varanasi'scharacteras an eternal mythic city.
No matterhow depressing the actual historical situation might have
been, concealed underthe debris, the mosques and the Mohammedan
quarterwas a more fundamentaldivine reality. It seems that the ruin
of old Varanasiwas just the requiredconditionto stimulatethe Hindu
imagination.44In response to the degrading reality of the 13th and
14th century,a timeless Varanasicentring aroundVisvesvara,drawn
up on a grand scale, was depicted in a new text of about 12,000
verses, the Kddikhanda(which was attributedto a Skandapurdnathat
The myths and
only has its name in common with its forerunner).45
in
the
as
the
Kdsikhanda
that
underlie
holy city represented
patterns
and later literaturecan be found in Diana Eck's Banaras, City of
Hans Bakker
44
Light (EB) and in Rana P.B. Singh (ed.), Banaras (Vcranasl). Cosmic Order, Sacred City, Hindu Traditions,Varanasi 1993. Among
the large numberof new shrinesthat came into prominenceare those
that belong to the most holy and frequentedplaces of the town today,
such as the DasasvamedhaGhat46and Bindu Madhavaat Paficaganga
Ghat.47This process of recreationshows the vitality of sacred space
which apparentlystands all time. Though continuouslyreconstructed
in various ways, it retains its function and significance as long as
there are human beings who are willing to believe.
University of Groningen
HANS BAKKER
Instituteof Indian Studies

Oude Boteringestraat23
NL-9712 GC Groningen
ABBREVIATIONS
EB
E&D
El
GD
IA
JASB
D.L. Eck, Banaras. City of Light, Princeton 1982.

The History of India as told by its own Historians. The
MuhammadanPeriod, edited from the posthumouspapers
of the late H.M. Elliot by John Dowson. London 18671877. 8 vols.
Epigraphia Indica. A collection of inscriptions supplementaryto the CorpusInscriptionumIndicarumof the Archaeological Survey,translatedby several oriental scholars; edited by Jas. Burgess [et al.], Calcutta/Bombay
1892-, vol. I- .
R. Niyogi, The History of the GdhadavalaDynasty, Calcutta 1959.
Indian Antiquary,a Journal of Oriental Research in Archaeology, History, Literature,Languages, Folklore, etc.,
edited by Jas. Burgess [et al.], Bombay 1872- , vol. I- .
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

JNSI
JRAS
45
Journal of the NumismaticSociety of India.

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Kcsikhanda[beingpart of the] Skandapurdna,Venkateshvara Steam Press, Bombay VS 1965 (AD 1907).

KKI
Moticandra,Kdsiikd Itihds. Vaidikkdl se arvacin yug tak
kd rdjnaitik-samskrtik
sarveksan,Bombay 1962.
The Mahdbhdratafor the first time critically edited by
MBH
V.S. Sukthankar[et al.], BhandarkarOriental Research
Institute,Poona 1927-1959. 19 vols.
MP
Matsyapurdna,edited by the Panditsof the Anandasrama,
[Poona] 1981.
Das
Purana Pancalaksana. Versucheiner Textgeschichte,
PPANC.
von Willibald Kirfel, Leiden 1927.
K.K. Thaplyal,Studies in Ancient Indian Seals, Lucknow
SAIS
1972.
SEL.INS. Select Inscriptions bearing on Indian History and Civilization, edited by Dines ChandraSircar. Vol. I, Delhi/
Madras 1965 (2nd edition), vol. II, Delhi etc. 1983.
SP
Skandapurana[according to ancient Nepalese Palm-leaf
MSS; see below, nn. 13, 14].
TVK
Krtyakalpataru.Astamo bhdgah: Tirthavivecanakdndam
by Bhatta Sri Laksmidhara,edited by K.V. Rangaswami
Aiyangar,Baroda 1942.
TVK(LP) Lingapurdna[as quoted in TVK].
KKH.
* An earlierversion of this articlewas readin the PrawerConferencein Jerusalem

in 1992; it may eventually appearin the Proceedingsof that conference.
IA
summaryof archaeologicalevidence is given in B.P. Singh, Life in Ancient
Varanasi(An account based on archaeological evidence), Delhi 1985, pp. 254f. and
A. Ghosh, An Encyclopaediaof IndianArchaeology. Vol.II, A Gazetteerof Explored
and Excavated Sites in India, Leiden etc. 1990, pp. 360-362. Compare, however,
A. Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, Simla 1973, p. 64: 'If period I B is
regardedas having startedin 500 BC, on the basis of the NorthernBlack Polished
Wareoccurringtherein, a sample from the early phase of the Warehaving a carbon14 date of 490 ? 110 BC, Period I A, with its rampart,can be regardedas dating
from 600 BC, the date 800 given to it by the excavatorbeing much on the high side.'
Hans Bakker
46
2 MBH 6.10.30: Varanasi(v.l. reads Varana);SP 29.42

(quoted in TVKpp. 44,
133); MP 183.62 (the Anandasramaedition reads varandsi nidl; varana ca nadi in
TVK p. 39); MP 183.73 (TVK p. 45); MP 184.51 (cf. TVK p. 39). Cf. KKI, p. 4.
3 As far as can be known (the
partof the Rajghatexcavationreportsdealing with

seals has not yet appeared)the great majorityof the names featuringon the nearly
400 seals assignable to the first three centuries of the Christian era (A. Ghosh,
Encyclopaedia, [above, note 1], Vol. II p. 361) refers to persons rather than to
religious institutions. However, 'it is during the late phase of this period that the
Saiva cult seems to make its modest beginning. This conclusion is also based upon
the evidence of sealings.' (B.P. Singh, Life, [above, note 1], p. 263). Among the
'Saiva' seals belonging to this period Thaplyal mentions a seal portrayingbull and
trident and having the legend sahasya in Kusana script, which he explains with the
words 'Saha is one of the names of Siva.' Two other seals of this period contain i.a.,
a linga (SAIS,p. 138f.; cf. J.N. Banerjea, The Developmentof Hindu Iconography,
Delhi 1956, p. 188).
4 MBH 3.82.69. An interpolation(see crit.app.ad MBH 3.82.69), which is not
found in TVKp. 240, adds the name Avimukta. Cf. MBH 13.26.14.
5 See also H. Bakker (ed.), The Sacred Centreas the Focus Political Interest,
of
of
The
Kuttanimata
viif.
1992,
depicts Varanasi as
Damodaragupta
Groningen
pp.
a peculiar blend of prophaneand religious activities. A.M. Shastri, India as Seen
in the Kuttani-Mataof Damodaragupta,Delhi 1975, p. 243 remarks,'In he 8th-9th
centuries A.D. there was a regularcolony of prostitutes,and our poet affordsa vivid
account of the conversation of courtesans, pimps and maids which Samarabhata
is representedto have heard while going to the temple (743-754). The assembly
which gatheredround Samarabhataafter the latter had offered worship to Siva included prostitutes also (757). It is interesting to note in this connection that the
Banarasinscriptionof Panthabelonging to the eighth centuryA.D. also notices this
peculiar mixture of the spiritualand the worldly and refers to streets of prostitutes
at Varanasi(El IX, pp. 59ff., verse 2).'
[pratolivividhajanapadastrlvilasdbhirdmam]
6 At least three seals with the legends 'Avimuktesvara'or 'Avimuktesvarabha[ttaraka]' belong, on palaeographicalgrounds,to this period (JNSIXIX,pp. 171ff.; SAIS,
pp. 140f.; J.N. Banerjea Iconography, (see above, n.3), pp. 188f.; KKI,pp. 95f.).
Three other Gupta seals have the legend 'Mahadeva' (SAIS,p. 138). In addition
to Avimuktegvara,there are altogether about ten other Saiva (linga) sanctuariesof
Gupta Varanasi known from seals. Four of these, viz. Bhutesvara(SAIS,p. 139),
Yogesvara(KKI,p. 96; SAIS,p. 142; J.N. Banerjea,Iconography,p. 188), Prajfievara
(= Praggesvara or Pragisvara? KKI,p. 97; cf. SAIS, p. 139), and Bhogakesvara (KKI,
p. 97) could not be found in the Tirthavivecanakdnda(TVK)or the Kdsikhanda

(KKH). The other six or seven Siva shrines known from seals of the Gupta period
are for the first time mentioned again in the Lingapurana as quoted by Laksmidhara(TVK(LP)),
which is differentfrom the publishedtext of that name (see below,
47
note 36): Hastisvara(Hastesvara,KKI,p. 97; SAIS,p. 139; TVK(LP)

p. 76), Devesvara
(SAIS,p. 139; TVK(LP)p. 44, 65), Gabhastisvara(JNSIXIX, p. 176; KKI,p. 97;
SAIS,p. 140; TVK(LP)p. 94), Pitakesvara(Pritikesvara,JNSIXIX,pp. 170ff.; SAIS,
p. 141; KKI,p. 97 reads the legend pritikesvarasvdmin;TVK(LP)p. 111), Bhrigesvara (Bhrgivara, KKI,p. 97; SAIS,p. 139; TVK(LP)
p. 84), Ganigesvara(Gargesvara,
KKI,p. 97; TVK(LP)p. 104), and maybe Candesvara(known from a seal reading
candesvaraddsa,SAIS,p. 143; TVK(LP)
p. 35).
7 J.G. Williams, The Art
of Gupta India. Empireand Province, Princeton 1982,
pp. 80f.; EB,p. 66. Thaplyal in SAIS,p. 161 observes: 'A large numberof sealings
of Rajghat bear the device of a pair of feet (padukds)and the legend pusyasaras.
Thaplyal speculates that, though one of these seals was found in Ayodhya, there
existed a Vaisnava shrine, Pusyasaras by name, in Varanasi itself, the priests of
which distributedthese sealings to devotees. Several Rajghat seals bear Vaisnava
symbols such as cakra, gadd, garuda, srivatsa, and satkha, whereas others bear
Vaisnavanames like Madhava,Haridasa,etc. (SAIS,p. 158; KKI,p. 99).
8 PPANC. 372-378. For the
developmentof this myth and its various versions
pp.
see Hans Bakker, 'EarlyMythology Relating to Varanasi,'in: Rana P.B. Singh (ed.),
Banaras (Vdranasi). Cosmic Order Sacred City, Hindu Traditions. Festschrift to
Prof. R.L. Singh, Varanasi1993, pp. 21-28.
9 This seems to be a
vestige of a still earlier version of the myth, in which
Varanasi did not become the 'never left' (a-vimukta)residence of Siva, but was
deserted and taken over by demons; cf. the SPversion, in which wild animals (mrga)
take the place of the rdksasa (sP 26.63).
10 a-vimukta: 'not left.' For two other interestingetymologies of avimuktasee
JNSIXIX, pp. 172f.
1 For a discussion of this image see i.a. A.S. Altekar,Historyof Benares, Benares
1937, pp. 26f.
12 S. Beal (tr.), Si-Yu-Ki. Buddhist Records of the WesternWorld. Translated
from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 629), Delhi 1969 (reprintof the London
1884 edition), Vol. II, pp. 44f.
13 For the oldest and most
important of these MSS see H.P. Sastri, A Catalogue of Palm-leaf and Selected Paper MSS belonging to the Durbar Library,
Nepal (to which has been added a Historical Introductionby C. Bendall), Calcutta
1905, p. lii (reprintedwith a concordanceby Reinhold Grinendahl, Stuttgart1989
[Verzeichnisder orientalischenHandschriftenin Deutschland,Supplementband31]);
A Catalogue of Photographsof SanskritMSSpurchasedfor the
T.R. Gambier-Parry,
administratorsof the Max Muller Memorial Fund, Oxford/London1930, pp. 22-25;
Brhatsucipatram[Index of Old MSS in the NationalArchives, Nepal. By Babu Krsna
Sarman],Vol. 8, p. 278; H. Bakker, 'Some MethodologicalConsiderationswith respect to the Critical Edition of PuranicLiterature,'in E. von Schuler (ed.), XXIII.
Deutscher Orientalistentag.AusgewdhlteVortrage,Stuttgart1989, p. 335, n. 28a.
48
Hans Bakker
14 The
manuscript is dated as was first pointed out by M. Witzel, 'On the
Archetype of Pataijali's Mahabhasya,'Indo-lranian Journal XXIX(1986), p. 256

n.9, where he briefly refers to this very MS, though solely from the point of view
of its palaeographicalinterest. Witzel reads the date as 252 and says that this is
Manadeva [= Amsuvarman]samvat. Bhattarai(see below) reads the date as 234
and in our opinion he is correct. 234 Amsuvarmansamvat would correspondto
AD 810. Witzel may have been confusing this MS with the ParamesvaratantraMS
in Cambridge (which is dated 252, though this too is no doubt Am.uvarman era
instead of Harsa as suggested by Bendall in his catalogue). This would make the
manuscript,as Witzel remarks,one of the oldest dated manuscriptsfound in Nepal.
On palaeographicalgroundstoo, the manuscriptmay, in our opinion, safely be dated
before AD 1000. Its script is comparableto that of the Nepalese palm-leaf Pali MS
that was edited by Oskar von Hinuber, The Oldest Pali Manuscript. Four Folios
of the Vinaya-Pitakafrom the National Archives, Kathmandu,Stuttgart1991. This
SkandapuranaMSwas used by Bhattaraifor his edition of the text under the title of
SkandapuranasyaAmbikdkhandah(Kathmandu1988).
15 A team has been formed at the Institute of Indian Studies (University of
Groningen)to preparea critical edition of this oldest version of the Skandapurana,
which is extant in three recensions, one called the Ambikdkhanda.We have reported
on this project in the Indo-IranianJournal 37 (1994), 325-331: 'Towardsa Critical
Edition of the Skandapurana'by R. Adriaensen,H.T. Bakker and H. Isaacson.
16 In addition to these holy sites the sP 29.5-8, 30.22-43 gives an elaborate
description of a park (Udyana), shown by Siva to Parvati,with luxuriantflora and
fauna.
17 See note 6 above, note 36 below. A shrine known from a post-Guptaseal (7th
century accordingto Thaplyalin SAIS,p. 139), viz. Kalasesvara,is mentionedin the
Kuttanimataof Damodaragupta(c. 800 AD) accordingto A.M. Shastri,India as Seen
in the Kuttani-Mata(above n. 5), p. 242. This text also mentions Vrsabhadhvaja
(= Vrsadhvajaof MBH 3.82.69 and sP 29.28-29) and Gambhiregvara,which is possibly identical to the Gabhastigvaraknown from seals and TVK(LP).
18The twelve lingas describedin the sP, otherthan Avimuktesvara,came to form
a groupin latertexts, which formationmay have had its startingpoint in the two summarizing verses in sP 29.60-61 (quoted in TVK p. 135): sailesam samgamesam ca
svarllnam madhyamesvaram/hiranyagarbhamisinam gopreksam savrsadhvajamll
upasintasivam caiva jyesthasthananivasinam/sukresvaramca vikhydtamvydghresam
jambukesvaram/drstva na jayate martyahsamsare duhkhasdgare//.The same group
of twelve litigas, in which Sukresvarais corruptedto Suddhesvaraand Vyaghresa
to Vyadesa, and to which two places are added by what seems to be a misconstruction of the above verses, viz. isanesvara (caisdnam isvaram; note SP reading
hiranyagarbhamisdnam) and Deva-each of these fourteen supplementedby their
respective bathing places-is found again in TVK(LP)p. 121f., where it forms the
49
Caturdasayatanayatra.Evidently this group of tirthas constituted the first ydtrd of

Varanasi as far as recorded. This ydtra is also found in the Tristhalisetup. 264
(Anandasramaed.), which reads (correctly) Sukresvaraand Vyaghresa and desigas nivasaka, i.e. Nivasesvara (note sP readnates Deva (at the Catuhsamudrakupa)
ing jyesthasthtnanivasinam). The same (including Isanesvaraand Nivasesvara) is
found in KKH 73.60-65, where it is said that this yearly yatra should be made
by those who seek release, since it produces the overall effect of the holy field
(ksetrasamsiddhiddyin).This yatra is found againin the last chapterof the Kdaskhandha (100.51-62) in a textual version that is close to that of TVK(LP)p. 121f. (but
reading correctly Sukresvaraand Vyaghresa) and that, like TVK(LP),prescribesthe
insteadof Nivasesvara(KKH100.57). The
worshipof Deva at the Catuhsamudrakupa
twelve
of
the
location
original lingas is plotted on a map that is included in
present
H. Bakker,Early Mythology (see above, note 8).
19 This ensues from a collation of the text passages that the sP and MPhave in
common. A full assessment will be given in the Prolegomenato the critical edition
of the Skandapuranathat is in preparation(see above, n. 15).
20 It is noteworthy that several of the text passages of the printed MP that are
indicated by the editors of the Anandasramaas being spurious neither occur in
Laksmidhara'sTVK. This concerns in particularthe slokas that feature names of
tirthas, such as e.g. Visvesvara(MP 182.17ab,cf. TVKp. 17; MP 184.69, cf. TVKp. 60)
and Manikarni(MP 182.24cd, cf. TVKp. 17; MP 185.69, cf. TVKp. 60), althoughthe
latter tirtha is already known (under the name Manikarnika)from the 7th century
DasakumdracaritaCh. 4. It would seem that the text of the Matsyapurdnahas
gone througha process of 'updating'in later centuries, a process for which we can
partiallycompensate by basing ourselves principallyon the text quoted in the TVK.
It can not be excluded that there once existed an earlier version of the MP chapters
at issue that was contemporaneouswith, or even older than the sP.
21 MP 182.6-7, omitted in TVK,p. 16.
22 MP 182.23cd-24ab, 25-27, TVK p. 17f. This connexion of Varanasi with
dying and the dead is confirmed by an outsider, Alberuni, whose description of
Benares must have been writtenbetween AD 1017 and 1030. The only myth relating
to Varanasi told by the Arab scholar is that of Kapalamocana('Liberation of the
Skull')-without mentioning a tirtha by that name, which seems in accordancewith
MP 183.84-103, where the slokas (MP183.101, 103) specifying this name are dubious
(significantly,in its quotationof MP 183.101, TVKp. 22 readssmasdnametad instead
of kapalamocanam,whereas MP 183.103 is omitted). Kapalamocanais mentioned
for the first time as a toponym in Brahmapurdnaquoted in TVK,p. 30; cf. the
Gahadavalainscriptionof AD 1122 (El IV, 110). Alberunifurtherdescribes Benares
as the meeting place of wanderersand ascetics who come to live here till they die
(E.C. Sachau (tr.), Alberuni's India. Edited with Notes and Indices, Delhi etc. 1964
(reprintof the London 1910 edition), Vol. II, pp. 146f.).
Hans Bakker
50
23 H. Kulke & D. Rothermund,Geschichte Indiens,

Stuttgartetc. 1982, p. 15.
24 It has been
argued by i.a. C. Colpe, 'Zur Bezeichnung und Bezeugung des
"Heiligen Krieges",'Berliner TheologischeZeitschrift,I (1984), p. 199 and W. Burkert, 'Krieg, Sieg und die OlympischenGotterder Griechen,'in F. Stolz (ed.), Religion
zu Krieg und Frieden, Zurich 1986, p. 81, that 'holy war' is a phenomenonrelated
to monotheistic religions. In H. Bakker, 'Ayodhya:a Hindu Jerusalem. An Investigation of "Holy War"as a Religious Idea in the Light of CommunalUnrestin India,'
Numen, XXXVIII(1991) this thesis is examined in view of the developmentsaround
what once was the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in present-dayIndia.
25 onijabhujoparjitasrlkanyakubjadhipatyasricandradevo
[...] (El IX, 304; etc.);
kanyakubje'karodrajd rajadhanimaninditam(SEL.INS.II, 280f.).
26
GD, pp. 180f.
27 El XIV, 197; R.
Niyogi, 'The Prasasti Sections of the CandravatiGrants of
Vs. 1150 and 1156,' Indian Historical Quarterly,XXV(1949), p. 36. The Vasantatilaka verse eulogizing Candradeva'spious and generous conduct is included in the
standardtext of all land grants (Sircar in El XXXV,202): tirthdni kadsikusikottarakosalendrasthdniyakdni
paripdlayatdbhigamya/hematmatulyamanisam dadata dvijebhyo yenankita vasumati satasas tulabhih//. His warriors,however, seem to have
behaved in a somewhat less sublime manner:kesin akarsa harsad apahara kucayor
ambarambhinddhisandhin udgadhankaicukasya pranama caranayornupurasaktahastah/ nivim unmunca kadcim apanaya na cirad ittham udvelaragas cakre vai
samka(tha)nam(?) svapatir iva rate yasya luntan bhataughah//(SEL.INS.II, 275).
The shared semantics of war and sex plays is elucidated in e.g. M. Hara, 'The
Holding of the Hair (kesagrahana),'in Acta Orientalia XLVII(1986), pp. 67-92.
28 H. Bakker,Ayodhya. Pt.I TheHistoryof Ayodhyafrom the 7th centuryBC to the
middle of the 18th century. Its developmentinto a sacred centrewith special reference
to the Ayodhyiamahtmyaand the worshipof Rama according to the Agastyasamhita.
Pt.II Ayodhyamadhtmya.Introduction,Edition, and Annotation. Pt.II Appendices,
Concordances, Bibliography, Indexes, and Maps, Groningen 1986, I pp. 53f., II,
256ff. The existence of an importanttemple in Ayodhya named Visnuhariis apparently confirmed by a spurious inscription that is claimed to have been 'recovered
on December 6, 1992, from the walls of the so-called Babri Masjid.' A.M. Shastri,
'Ayodhyaand God Rama,' in: Puratattva23 (1992-93), 37, gives an outline of the
contents of this inscription ('a large rectangularstone-slab (measuringabout 5 x 2
ft.) bearing a twenty-line inscription' [...] 'engraved in the chaste and classical
Nagari script of the eleventh-twelfth century A.D.'). Shastri notes that 'Line 15
of this inscription, for example clearly tells us that a beautiful temple of VishnuHari, built with heaps of stone (sild-samhati-grahais),and beautifiedwith a golden
spire (hiranya-kaldsa-sri-sundaram)unparallelledby any other temple built by earlier kings (parvvair-apy-akrtamkrtamnripatibhir)was constructed.' It remains as
51
yet unclear which king orderedthe constructionof this temple, but he seems not to
have been a Gahadavala.
29 CandravatiPlates VS 1150 (AD 1093), incompletely edited in El XIV, 192ff.
El XXVI,270 and EIXXXV,203 give the additionalinformation(cf. R. Niyogi, 'The
PrasastiSections,' IHQ, (see above, note 27), p. 37; SEL.INS.II, pp. 273-8): haimani
yena manibhih khacitdny anarghyair dattdni visnuharayeca vibhusanani/ kdsy.am
vyabhasayadanekasuvararatnair yas cddikesavavibhohpratimdmnivesya/18ll. See
also H. Bakker,Ayodhya,(see above, note 28), I, pp. 51f.
30
E.g. Candradevain VS 1156 (EI XIV, 198f.), Madanapalain VS 1164 (JRAS
1896, 787f.), Govindacandrain VS 1187 (JASBLVI,Pt.1, pp. 106-113), VS 1188 (IA
XIX,252), and in VS 1197 (El XXVI,268ff.), Jayacandrain VS 1230 (EIIV, 123f.).
31 El IV, 119f.: srimadvdrdnasydm
gangayam snatva devasryaidikesavasamnidhau
[...] bhagavatah krsnasya pjdim vidhaya etasyaiva diksdgrahanaprastdve[...]
[...].
mahardjaputrasrijayacandrena
32 The centre of the religious activity of the Gahadavalasevidently lay in the
northernpartof present-dayVaranasialong the Varanasi(Varana)river and from its
confluence with the Gafga down till Trilocanaghatta.In this district(called rdjadhani
varanasi by Jinaprabhasuri,see below, note 43) lay, besides Adikesavaand Trilocana,
all the tirthas mentioned in the Gahadavalainscriptions apart from Lolarka, viz.
Kapalamocana(GovindacandraVS 1178 (EIIV, 110)), Krttivasas(where Jayacandra
performed a tulapurusa in VS 1231 (El IV, 126)), Kotitirtha(located according to
TVK, pp. 53f. near Bhismacandikaand the cremation ground (smasana), probably
along the Varana),where Govindacandratook a bath in VS 1207 (EIVIII,159), and
Vedesvaraghatta,where Govindacandratook a bath in VS 1197 (EI IV, 114) and
which, according to TVKp. 44, lies south of Kesava. In this district the house was
also situatedthat Govindacandrain VS 1171 (AD 1114/5) gave to Dayisarman,viz.
to the east of the Paicormkara(i.e. Omkara)temple and Aghoresvaraand to the west
of Indramadhavaand Laudesvara(El VIII, 153).
33 hammlram
nyastavairammuhurasamaranakridaydyo vidhatte (IA XVIII,16).
Comparethe introductionof the Dainakdndaof the Krtyakalpataru(p. 48) in which
Laksmidharasays thatGovindacandrakilled the Hammira-vira.The rebuffedMuslim
leader probablywas 'some officer of the contemporaryYamini sultan of Ghazni and
Lahore, MasCiidIII ibn Ibrahim(c. AD 1099-1115)' (GD,p. 58).
34 varanasimbhuvanaraksanadaksaeko dusta(t) turuskasubhatddavitumharena/
ukto haris sa punar atra babhiivatasmadgovindacandrai(ti) viprathitdbhidhanah//.
El IX, p. 324 and SEL.INS.II, 296 vs.16; both these editions do not restore the
hypometricalreading of the original in pdda d, viz. iviprathitda,but, without any
notification, read iti prathitd". Compare the claim to the same effect of Govindacandra's grandson, Jayacandra(AD 1170-1194), in an inscription dated VS 1243
(AD 1187), in the very year that the thread from the west was stepped up by
atha
Mu'izz al-Din MuhammadGhuri'scaptureof Lahore: tasmadadbhutavikramdd
52
Hans Bakker
jayacandrdbhidhanahpatir bhipanam avatirna esa bhuvanoddharayanarayanah/

(dvaidhi)bhdvamapasya vigraharucimdhikkrtyasantasayah sevante yam udagraparthivah//13// (IA XV, 11).
bandhanabhayadhvamsarthinah
35 The Amaresvara
Temple Inscriptionof AD 1063 counts Avimuktaamong the
five great lingas (El XXV, 185). Laksmidharaadds to the older text material of
the MPand SP the more recent Lingapurdna(see below, note 36), which highlights
Avimukta by describing the origin of the linga: divyam varsasahasram tu stuto
'ham vividhaihstavaih/ utpannammama lingam tu bhittvabhumimyaSasvini//tesam
anugrahdrthayalokdnambhaktibhavatah/varanasyammahadevi tatra sthane sthito
hy ahamll TVK(LP),p. 41.
36 The fact that this text mentions the sanctuary of Kesava at the confluence
of Varanaand Gafiga (TVKp. 44) seems to imply that it was composed between
AD 1090/93, the probable date of the founding of the sanctuary(see above), and
the reign of Govindacandra(AD 1109-1155), when Laksmidharacomposed his
Tirthavivecanakn.da. The prefix Adi? in the Gahadavalainscriptions may point
to the existence of another,older Kesava temple, which the sanctuaryat the confluence was meant to replace: possibly the Kesava/Krsnatemple that must have stand
at the BakariaKund (see above). Because complete adhyayas of this Lingapurana
are quoted, inclusive their colophons, which is ratherunusual, and this text does not
reappearin other kandas of the Krtyakalpataru,it would seem that this text, which
almost exclusively deals with lingas, was some kind of local mahatmya,associated
with the Lingapuranaon accountof its contents, composed in the Gahadavalaperiod
when Varanasiprosperedand the need for a complete survey was felt. Laksmidhara,
apparentlyaware of the late characterof the text, only quoted from it when he did
not find the same materialin his other sources.
37 The
penultimate,seventeenthadhyayaof the LP quotedin TVKdescribesseveral
(see above, n. 18).
yatras, among which the Caturdasayatanayatra
38 MadhainagarCopper-plate(date illegible) in SEL.INS.II, 127 vs.11: yenasau
kasirajah samarabhuvijito. See also the Bowal (i.e. India Office) plate dating from
the 27th regnal year, El XXVI,p. 6. Cf. R.C. Majumdar,History of Ancient Bengal,
Calcutta 1971, p. 233.
39 El XXXIII,322 (cf. SEL.INS.II, 131-139) vs. 12:
velaydmdaksinabdhermusalaksetre
visvesvarasya sphuradasivaranadslesagangordharagadapanisamvasavedyam
yenoccair yamibhaji/ tirotsange trivenyahkamalabhavamakhdrambhanirvyajapite
jnayupaih saha samarajayastambhamalanyadhayil/l2//. Accordingto Sircar(against
this R.C. Majumdar,History of Ancient Bengal, Calcutta 1971, pp. 249f.), the Visvariupa/Suryasena
palimpsest inscriptions (Edilpur and Madanapadacopper-plates)
tell us that Visvarupa's 'exploits at Banaras and Allahabad have to be assigned to
the period when his father Laksmanasena was ruling [...].
Visvarupasena must
have commanded the Sena forces against the Gahadavalasas his father's general'
(El XXXIII,318). This would imply that the yuvaraja Visvarupawas in Varanasi
Sacred Space in Vradnasi
53
(and Prayaga and Puri) before AD 1193. Apart from the fact that the crown prince
probably was a child at that time, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Senas
managedto penetratethat far into India at such an early date, and the absence of any
declarationof such an achievementin Laksmanasena'sown records (the declaration
of victory over the king of Kasi made in his later inscriptions [see above, n. 38]
seems hardly to do justice to this heroic feat) is very conspicuous.
Another possibility is that the crown prince Visvarfpa organized a raid into the
former Gahadavalakingdom after the latter had collapsed, that is in the times that
chaos prevailedthroughoutnorthernIndia (AD 1193-1200) (GD, pp. 105f.). However,
the in our view most plausibleexplanationof the fact pointed out by Sircar,viz. that
it was Visvartupa'sson, Suryasena, who acclaimed his father's pillars of victory
(later corroboratedby Visvarupa himself in his 'Calcutta Sahitya Parishat Plate,'
see N.G. Majumdar,Inscriptionsof Bengal, vol. III,Rajshah 1929, p. 144 vs. 14),
seems to be, that Visvarupa,installed as king after the death of Laksmanasenain
AD 1206, made use of the period of confusion and internal strife that followed
the death of BakhtiyarMuhammadKhalji-a Turkish soldier of fortune, who had
conqueredgreat partsof Bengal (in AD 1202), but whose army was totally destroyed
in a catastrophiccampaignin Kamaripa (E&D, II pp. 309-314)-a period that lasted
until his murderer,'Ali Mardan,had succeeded in reorganizinghis forces, i.e. from
AD 1206 to 1210 (E&D, pp. 314-317), when the GangeticPlain lay open for any wellorganized force. From the above it follows that the pillar of victory was erected in
Varanasiby Visvarupa,most likely after the demolitionof the town by the Muslims.
Evidently, Visvarupadid not have the means or time to erect a larger structuresuch
as a temple. He might have selected the site of Visvesvarabecause it was situated
at the central hill, in the middle of (ruined) Varanasiand because of its association
with his own name (Visvarupa- Visvesvara).
40 Cf. VS. Pathak, 'Religious Sealings from Rajghat,'Journal of the Numismatic
Society of India, XIX (1957), p. 174: 'Thus, Avimuktesvarawas the most sacred
deity of the city only up to the concluding decade of the twelfth century AD and
from the very beginning of the thirteenthcenturyAD Visvesvaraenjoyed that status.
This sudden rise of Visvesvarawithin almost a decade is inexplicable.'
41 EB, p. 133: '[...] the
hilltop of Vishveshvara. Looking down upon the busy
streets two stories below, it is amazingto see how completely the city has hiddenthis
hilltop. Here, on the highest ground in all central Benares, is Razia's Mosque.' Cf.
M.A. Sherring,TheSacred Cityof the Hindus: An Accountof Benares in Ancientand
Modern Times, London 1868, p. 55: '[...] but, on the eastern side of the enclosure
(of the moder Visvanathatemple), the ground becomes considerablyelevated, and
upon it stands a mosque built of very old materials, the pillars of which date as
far back as the Gupta period, and possibly earlier. May not these old stones and
pillars be remains of the original Bisheswar?' Under the thick layers of white-
Hans Bakker
54
wash old (Hindu) pillars are certainlydistinguishable,but whetherthey are as old as

conjecturedby Sherringis doubtful.
42 A. Ftihrer,The SharqiArchitectureof Jaunpur,edited by Jas. Burgess, Calcutta
1889, p. 51: tasydtmajahsucidhirah padmasddhurayam bhuvil21/ kadsyamvisvesvaradvari himdd<r>isi(kh)aropamam/
padmesvarasyadevasya prdsddamakarot sudhih/I33//. Cf. P. Prasad,SanskritInscriptionsof Delhi Sultanate 1191-1526, Delhi
etc. 1990, pp. 149-152. EB, p. 133 mistakes the Samvat date for the Christianera.
Cf. KKI,p. 190.
43 Jinaprabhasuri,Vividhatlrthakalpa,
crit. ed. by Jina Vijaya, Santiniketan1934,
p. 74: 1 devavdrdnasi,yatra visvanathaprdasdah,2 rdjadhanlvaranasi, yatradyatve
yavanah, 3 madanavaranasi,4 vijayavaranasl. For discussion of these four districts
see KKI,p. 195. For the date of this text see J.P. Jain, The Jaina Sources of the
History of Ancient India (100 BC-AD 900), Delhi 1964, p. 220.
44 Cf. D.L. Eck, 'A Surveyof SanskritSources for the Study of Varanasi,'Purana
xxII, (1980), p. 84: 'On the one hand, it seems to this writerunlikely that the literary
care and attentionlavished upon the many shrinesof Kasi would have arisenfrom the
era of ruin and debilitation that followed the attack of Mahmud of Ghur's general
Qutb-ud-din-Aibakin 1194.' Eck underestimatesthe psychological resilience of
the Hindus of northernIndia who, also in the 14th century, produced an ocean of
traditionalSanskritliterature.
45 It seems that the
practice of calling newly composed texts khandas of the
have
startedin the 12th century. Laksmidharastill only quotes
Skandapurdnamight
from an undivided Skandapurdna,which is to be identified with the text we are
presentlyediting (sP). The earliest mention of specific khandasof the Skandapurdna
by name is to the best of our knowledge found in the list given by Ballalasena of
texts not drawn on for his Ddnasagara. This royal scholar (AD 1169-70), father of
the king of Gauda (Bengal), Laksmanasena,mentioned above, noted three khandas,
viz. Paundra0,Revfa, and Avanti0,in additionto the undividedSP:pracaradrupatah
'dhikam/yatkhandatritayampaundrareviivantikathasrayam//
skandapuranaikdms'ato
(Danasagara, edit. by Bh. Bhattacharya,Calcutta 1953, p. 7). The majorityof his
quotations from the undivided Skandapuranacan be traced in SP. Another 12thcentury author, Devanabhatta(AD 1150-1225), quotes from a Nagarakhanda in
the Asaucakanda (p. 173, 176) of his Smrticandrika(edit. by R. Shama Sastry,
Mysore 1921). All his other quotations (mainly in the Srdddhakanda)are from
the Skandapurdnaas such, but we have so far not succeeded to find any of them
in sP. The titles of the Reva?, Avanti0 and Nagara0 khandas are known from the
published Skandapurana. Hemadri (AD 1260-70) quotes from seven khandas by
name, though the larger part of his Skandapuranaquotations does not specify a
khanda (see R.C. Hazra, Studies in the Purdnic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs, Dacca 1940, pp. 325ff.). Hemadriassigns seven slokas, which deal with gold
(Sraddhakhandap. 663f.), to a Kdiikhanda,but these are not found in the printed
Sacred Space in Vdradnasl
55
text of that name. It has been arguedin H. Bakker,Ayodhyd,(see above, note 28),
I pp. 129f., that the Vaisnavakhandaof the printed Skandapurdnawas composed
at the close of the 13th or in the 14th century. The Kdiikhanda may have been
composed in approximatelythe same period. It cites old and new locations for
several temples, hence 'its final composition must have been after the destruction
of many of the city's temples in 1194' (D.L. Eck, Survey, (see above, note 44),
p. 83 and EB, p. 347). This statement is based on the thorough investigations of
K.N. Sukul, Vdranasi Vaibhav,Patna 1977, pp. 278ff. The earliest testimonies for
the Kdsikhandaappearin the 15th century, viz. Vacaspatimisra'sTirthacintdmani
(R.C. Hazra,Studies, (see above), p. 326) and Srinatha'sTelugu version of this text.
It goes without saying that, when we date the composition of the Kdilkhanda
around AD 1300, this does not imply that all its contents was created at that date.
Parts of its material may even date from before the catastropheof AD 1193. We
have tried to clarify the process of composition of this type of mahdtmyaliterature
in H. Bakker,Ayodhyd,(see above, note 28), I pp. 126ff. and H. Bakker,Methodological Considerations,(see above, note 13).
46 KKH 52. EB, p. 151f. TVK(LP)p. 116 only mentions cursorily a 'Dasasvamedhikalifiga.'
47 KKH 59-61. EB,
pp. 234ff. TVK(LP)p. 96 mentions a 'Pafcanadisvaralifiga,'
but is silent on Bindu Madhava. The Bindu Madhavatemple was destroyed and
replaced by a mosque in the time of Aurangzeb.
THE FEMALE POLE OF THE GODHEAD IN TANTRISM AND

THE PRAKRTI OF SAMKHYA
KNUT A. JACOBSEN*
Summary
The dualism of the consciousness principle (purusa) and the material principle (prakrti)in the Sarmkhyaand Patafijala-Samkhya(Yoga) traditionsof religious
thought has often been thought of as a dualism of a male and a female principle.
Contraryto what is often assumed however the materialprinciple of Samkhya and
Patafjala-Samkhyadoes not possess a female identity. This paper argues that the
identificationof the Samkhyaand Pftafijala-Sarmkhya
prakrtiwith a female principle
among scholars is due to a very selective use of evidence and too much dependence
on later sources, especially the Tantricreligious systems in which the female-male
polarity was utilized for the interpretationof the ultimate reality, the structureof
the world and the means to attain liberation. The way the Tantricreligions utilized
the Samkhya dualism of prakrti and purusa to illustrate the female-male polarity
of ultimate reality illustratesthe mannerin which the Tantricreligions reinterpreted
elements of earlier systems of religious thought and transformedthem according to
their own purpose and the process of borrowingand synthesizing of what had come
before them typical of the Hindu religious traditions.
1. Polarity and Dualism in Tantrism and Samkhya

One of the key characteristics of Tantrism is the understanding of
the divine and the world as being sexually polarized into male and
female aspects. The female pole of Tantric Hinduism is understood
as an active principle and the source of the world and is in theology
personified as a goddess. While it is common to see the Sarmkhyadualism of purusa and prakrti as a precursor to the male-female polarity
of the ultimate principle in the Hindu systems of thought, the material
principle of Samkhya (prakrti) is not a female principle and the feminization of prakrti is due to the arising of Tantrism and Saktism that
is posterior to the development of Samkhya. The understanding of
the Samkhya dualism of purusa and prakrti as a male-female dualism
NUMEN,Vol.43
The Female Pole of the Godhead
57
seems to a large degree to be based on the influence of the Tantric

interpretationsof reality. Sometimes the interpretationof Samkhya
by Indianand Westernscholars seems to be heavily influencedby the
Tantrictradition of seeing ultimate reality as polarized into a male
and a female principle. When the Tantricparadigmaticunderstanding of the world as being caused and constitutedby the interaction
of male and female forces becomes the basis for the interpretationof
the Samkhya system of thought,as is sometimes the case in contemporary interpretations,then the Samkhya system is transformedinto
Tantrism.
Hindu Tantricsects emerged perhaps as an innovationamong ascetics as a reaction to forms of renunciation. Hindu Tantric sects
have usually been small groups of initiated ascetics.1 There seems
to be some agreementthat TantrictraditionsspreadthroughoutIndia
from around 500 C.E. or perhapsearlier and the first Hindu Tantric
texts calling themselves Tantrasbegan to appearin written Sanskrit
around 800 C.E.2 By around 1000 C.E. Tantrictheory and practice
began to have observableprofoundeffects on the "mainstream"Hindu
religions.3The Tantrictraditions"revised,reshapedand recast much
of what preceded it."4 Tantrismis often defined by the listing of
its constituents. Hardy has however correctly noted that attemptsto
define Tantrismthrough cataloging its constituents necessarily fail
because all the items of such lists are more or less Indianuniversals.5
Mantra, yantra, mudra,puija,sakti, etc., are almost all-pervasivein
Hindu religions. Tantrismthereforerepresentsto a large degree the
reorganizingof variouselements of Vedic religion and Hinduismand
exemplify the processes of inclusion, inversion and hierarchization
typical of religious change in India. Thus the originalityof Tantrism
lies not so much in its components but in the way in which it organized them into a new pattern.6
In Hindu Tantrismthe female pole is the dynamic aspect of the
ultimate, it is the pole of energy and activity. All that manifests and
dissolves itself in the cosmos is conceived as products of the association and disassociation of the male and female principlein which
the female principle is understoodas the active and the male princi-
58
KnutA. Jacobsen
pie the passive. In Tantrismthe divinity is constituted by a sexual

polarity conceived as a divine couple such as Siva-Sakti, Visnu-Sri,
Radha-Krsna,etc. In Samkhyaalso the association of the active principle (prakrti)and the passive principle (purusa) is the precondition
of the existence of the manifest world. But purusa and prakrti in
Sarmkhyaare beyond the divinities and are not personified. According to Samkhya the divine world is eight fold startingwith Brahma,
Prajapati,Indra, etc. The divinities are products of the association
of purusa and prakrtibut there is no significantsexual symbolism in
the divine world. In Tantrismthe relationshipbetween the male and
female principle is theologized. Sakti is personified as a goddess,
while the Samkhyaprakrti is devoid of consciousness and can not
be a person. The concept of Sakti in Tantrismrefers to all forms
of activities and change, and also in Samkhya all activity is thought
of as taking place in prakrti. The distinguishing of one principle
as passive and the other as active in the process of manifestationof
the world is common in Tantrismand Samkhya, but the difference
is that in Tantrismthe passive and active principles constitute the
male and female side of the bipolarultimateprinciple. According to
Tantrismthis activity is part of the consciousness principle which is
characterizedboth by activity (kriya, spanda) and consciousness, i.e.,
Siva and Sakti are ultimately one. According to Samkhya the activity principle and the consciousness principle are ultimately separate.
Both sakti according to Tantrismand prakrti according to Samkhya
are the materialcause and substratumof the world, but prakrti does
not inhere in another principle such as purusa, while the activity
principle, according to Tantrism,inheres in the consciousness principle which is inseparablefrom its activity. In Samkhyaprakrti is
the substratumof the world but the consciousness principle (purusa)
is independentfrom it. In Tantrismsometimes all manifestationsare
viewed as resulting from a sexual relationshipbetween a male and a
female principle. According to Samkhya, all manifestationsare due
to the association of two principles,purusa and prakrtibut this association is not understoodas a sexual relation between persons. Both
Samkhya and Tantrismaccept satkdryavdda,i.e., that the effect pre-
59
exists in the cause in a subtle state and is ultimatelynon-differentfrom

it. The whole manifest world exists in a subtle undifferentiatedstate
before its manifestation. According to Tantrismeverything inheres
ultimately in the consciousness principle which is both knowledge
and activity, and thereforeeverythingis consciousness, while according to prakrti all materialeffects inherein the materialcause, prakrti,
but the consciousness principle is separateand independentfrom the
material principle which constitutes all phenomena, i.e., everything
is not consciousness. Tantrismis thereforeultimately monistic and
Samkhya dualistic. According to Samkhya separationdissolves the
manifestation and association is the logical cause of manifestation,
while accordingto Tantrismunion is the ultimatetruthand separation
the cause of creation. Both Samkhya and Tantrismemphasized the
polarity of the ultimate. Samkhya emphasized the total difference
and separationof prakrti and purusa, but accordingto Tantrism,being monistic, the polarity is ultimatelyone. This difference has been
well described by S.B. Dasgupta:
Though in a popularway Purusaand Prakrtiof the Samkhyasystem have somehow been related together in the process of cosmic evolution, metaphysically
they are two distinct and self-sufficient realities and it is because of the distinct
natureof Purusaand Prakrtithat variouscontroversieshave arisenas to the exact
nature of the realization. In the Tantrasand other Saiva and Sakta literature,
the primordialgod and the primordialgoddess, or Siva and Sakti, as they are
commonly called, are not two distinct ultimate realities; they representtwo aspects of the absolute reality and sometimes Sakti is conceived of as contained
in Siva as his kinetic energy. The absolute truth is a union of Siva and Sakti.
Siva representspure consciousness which is inactive-the static aspect of the
ultimate reality, while Sakti representsthe world force-the dynamic aspect of
the ultimate reality.7
Prakrti in Samkhya is primarilytriguna, i.e., the sattva, rajas and

tamas, a materialenergy capable of rationalordering(sattva), spontaneous activity (rajas) and determinateformulationor objectivation
(tamas).8 This prakrti is neither a goddess nor are the constituents
personified. In Tantrismthe sattva, rajas and tamas are identified
with Sarasvati,Laksmi and Kali.9
60
KnutA. Jacobsen
Salvation according to Samkhya is a result of separationof the

purusa andprakrtiprinciple. The Tantricapproach,on the otherhand,
can be describedas "theconcrete, ritualmeans of personallyrealizing
the unity of Siva and his Saktis, of establishingindividuallythe union
of the absolute with the world of phenomena."'0Dyczkowski writes:
The opposites separateand merge in rhythm with the pulsating union of Siva
and Sakti. This play of opposites is itself the absolute, the supreme form of
Spanda. When Siva and Sakti unite, the universe, formerly experienced as a
reality set apartfrom consciousness, ceases to exist. When they separate,it is
once more created.11
It has also been suggested that there are two traditionsof yoga in
India. One is the yoga of Samkhya,Buddhism,Jainism,etc., and the
other is the TantricYoga of the Saiva-Saktaschools.12One is the yoga
of secession, the other the yoga of sublimation. In Samkhya,purusa
is the pure knower and all activity belongs to prakrti. The goal is to
realize purusa devoid of prakrtiby dissolving the transformationsof
prakrti. Tantricyoga on the other hand conceives of consciousness
not only as seer (drastr) but also as spontaneousdoer (kriya). Consciousness is force (sakti) expressing itself in spontaneouseffortless
activity. Mishra explains:
The ultimate consciousness which is the Self or Siva, actually Siva and Sakti
or Jiana and Kriya or Prakasa and Vimarsa-both in one. In the Patafijala
traditions of yoga, however, the self is conceived only as Siva or Prakdsa or
Jiina; the Sakti or Vimarsaor Kriya aspect is left out.13
Samkhya and Tantrismare probablyhistorically related systems and

if Tantricsects emerged among ascetic groups as a reactionto forms
of renunciation,as suggested, it was perhapspartly a reaction to the
yoga of cessation of the Samkhyasystem. Tantrismusually accepted
much of the Samkhya system, such as the twenty-five tattva-s, although they added additionalprinciples above the purusa principle,
thus including the Samkhya principles but making them inferior to
the ultimate consciousness and the powers (sakti-s). Their concept of
the sexual polarity of the divine is, however,radically differentfrom
the Samkhya dualism.
61
2. The Presentationof the Prakrti of Samkhyaas a Feminine

Principle
Many IndianscholarsthinkthatTantrismis a directcontinuationof
Samkhya,14and the statementthat the prakrtiof Samkhyais a female
principle is repeatedagain and again by historiansof religions.
Systematic arguments that prakrti is a woman is found in the
studies of D.P. Chattopadhyayaand N.N. Bhattacharyya.Chattopadhyaya has claimed unconditionallythat "prakrtioriginally meant the
female".'5Chattopadhyayaargues:
It is true that prakrti of Samkhya meant the material principle. What is often
overlooked,however,is the circumstancethatovertlyfemale characteristicswere
also attributedto the same... the prakrti was comparedto the dancing girl and
the shy bride... the terminologies like ksetra and others, by which the prakrti
was constantlyreferredto in the Sfrmkhyatexts, probablyhad an overt feminine
significance. These show that prakrti was not merely a material principle but
also a female principle.16
The view that prakrti of Samkhya was a female principle has also
been arguedrepeatedlyby N.N. Bhattacharyya.Bhattacharyyaargues
thatprakrtioriginallystood for the "motherearth"or the "fruitbearing
soil" and that this mother earth principle became in Samkhya the
"female principle."Bhattacharyyawrites:
In the present form of the Samkhya,as well as in the Tantras,the term Prakrti
has acquired a purely metaphysical connotation, but basically it stood for the
Mother Earth, the fruit bearing soil. The cause of the material world is thus
nothing but matter, since Prakrtiis the primordialmatter or substance. In the
Samkhya, this primordialprinciple is representedas the Female Principle. The
relationbetween Purusaand Prakrtiis explainedin terms of the relationbetween
a man and a woman.17
Bhattacharyyaalso writes that "the conception of a materialprakrti

evolved from that of a materialEarthMother supposed to represent
the forces that stimulate the generativepowers of nature."'8He understandsprakrti to be charmingpurusa "just as a woman charms a
man,"'9and he even thinksthatprakrtirefersto the sexual organof the
female: "The concept of Yoni, i.e., female organ or female womb,
as the first principle... found its best theoretical expression in the
62
KnutA. Jacobsen
Samkhya concept of Prakrtior Pradhana,the materialas well as the

female principle of creation,the substratumof the earlier Tantras."20
Bhattacharyyaargues that Samkhya through time lost much of its
original content and this was replaced by Vedantaideas.21He also,
like Chattopadhyaya,connects the origin of the concept of prakrti to
possible matriarchalsocieties in Ancient India. He suggests that the
role of the husbandin a female-dominatedsociety finds its expression
in the Samkhyaphilosophy of prakrti as the active andpurusa as the
passive principle,thus suggesting that the concept of prakrtimirrored
the social positions of women in society.
Also historians of religions, especially specialists in the Hindu
as a female principle.
goddess traditions,identify the Sarmkhyaprakrti
Several illustrationsfrom recent publicationscan be given.
William P. Harmanwrites:
The dualismof the influentialSamkhyaphilosophicalsystem personifiesthe two
ultimate realities, purusa ("spirit")and prakrti ("matter")as respectively, male
and female.22
Likewise KathleenM. Emdl writes:

In the Samkhyasystem and the Yoga school based on it, Prakrtihas a somewhat
negative connotation;it is seen as the web of matterin which the spirit, Purusa,
is entrapped.Liberationin Sarmkhya-Yoga
termsis isolation (kaivalya)of Purusa
the
from
Prakrti.
is similar to the Greek (and
This
formulation
male)
(literally,
of
with
identification
the
male
spirit and the female with
subsequentlyChristian)
of
the
with
the
devaluation
latter.23
matter,
Here the Samkhyaprakrti is identified as a female and the prakrtipurusa dualism of Samkhyais understoodas a male-female dualism
and as expressing a similar devaluationof women as in Greece and
in Christianity.The understandingof the Samkhyaprakrti as a feminine principle is also defended by some specialists on Samrkhya.
R.J. Parrottwrites that:
When the Sarmkhyagives praise to this world, his affection is expressed in a
very personalisticway. I have tried to impartthis personalflavor in my writing
by maintaining the linguistically correct 'she' (sic) in regard to Prakrti. The
more commonly used 'it' misrepresentsthe classical Samrkhyaattitudetoward
63
Prakrtias the world. In the Karikathe world is personal,and because this world
sets Purusafree, 'she' is ultimately worthwhile.24
The identificationof Siva and Sakti withpurusa andprakrtibecame

of foremost importancewith the growthof the Tantrictradition.Here
prakrti and purusa have become female and male principles. Thus
Ajit Mookerjee and Madhu Khannawrite in a popular presentation
of Tantrism:
All manifestationaccording to tantra,is based upon a fundamentaldualism, a
male principleknown as Purusa(Cosmic Consciousness)and a female principle
known as Prakrti(Cosmic Force of Nature). Prakrti,Nature, is synonymous
with Sakti (female energy). Purusa and Prakrtiare the cosmicized versions of
the earthly,phenomenalmale and female. In reality,the whole world, the entire
manifold of experience, is Siva-Sakti,Purusaand Prakrti,Male and Female.25
In Tantrismprakrti was identified with Sakti, the goddess, and the

female side of the male-female polarity of the ultimate principle.
Tantrismreorderedand reinterpretedthe variousconstituentsof Vedic
and Hindu religions. It is not correctby historiansof religion, however, to identify the female principle of Tantrismwith the Samkhya
prakrti because the Samkhya prakrti preceded the Tantric female
principle in time. While Tantra,no doubt, might be influenced by
Samkhyato some degree, Samkhyawas not a Tantricphilosophy,and
the Tantricunderstandingof concepts can not be appliedto Samkhya
without changing Samkhya into Tantrism. In Tantrismthe polarity
of the absolute is a male-female polarity,the polarity of Samkhya is
a consciousness-matterdualism. The dualism of prakrti and purusa
was reinterpretedby Tantrismand given gender specific meaning and
became included in the Tantricsystems. There is no evidence that
this polarity was used by Samkhya to express gender. If it were,
then Samkhya would be misunderstoodas a philosophy of liberating
males (purusa) from women (prakrti)which is not supportedby their
metaphysics.
On logical grounds Samkhya prakrti cannot be thought of as a
person since it is devoid of consciousness. All manifestationsare
due to the association of purusa and prakrti. Thus males as well
KnutA. Jacobsen
64
as females are constituted by purusa and prakrti. The Sdkta perspective, by personifyingprakrti, had to reject the Samkhya view of
unconscious (acetana) matter. When prakrti became a goddess, or
was identified with the Goddess, Devi, the older Samkhya dualism
between passive consciousness and active materialitywas abandoned.
By personifyingprakrti,consciousness was automaticallyascribedto
it, and consciousness and materialitymerged into a monistic concept.
The Devi, it has been suggested, is a combination of the quality of
a dispassionatewitness usually ascribedto purusa and the quality of
compassionate mother.26The Devi-Bhagavata Purana says:
The Samkhyaphilosopherssay that of the two principles,purusa and prakrti,it
is prakrti, the creatrixof the world, that is devoid of consciousness (caitanya).
But can you (Devi, identified with prakrti) really be of such nature,for (if this
were so), how could the abode of the world (Visnu) be made unconscious by
you today?27
According to Samkhya,personificationdepends on, and is caused by,

the association of the two ultimate principles. Female experience is
based on the same fundamentalassociation of soul and matter as is
male experience. The Samkhyaand Yoga analysis of soul and matter
seems with respect to this to have greatersimilarityto Jainism than
to Tantrism.
One common argumentused to defend the view that prakrti is a
female is to refer to selected similes used to illustratethe nature of
prakrti in Sdmkhyakarikd(350-450 C.E.). In karika 59 prakrti is
comparedto a female dancer who after having been seen by the audience, withdraws. To make an argumentfrom this simile about the
femininity of prakrti is to carrya simile too far. There are also other
similes in which prakrti is comparedto milk (Sdmkhyakdrika57), a
cook (Tattvakaumudion Sdmkhyakdrika56), etc., but no-one argues
that prakrti is in reality milk or a cook. The promotersof the thesis of the femininity of prakrti use the material selectively. Similes
are often used to illustrate a single point and should be used with
care. To say that a certain person is scared like a mouse does not
imply that that person is in reality a mouse, but that he is scared.
That prakrti withdrawslike a female dancer who has completed her
65
performance means that prakrti withdraws when it has completed

its task, i.e., when it has been identified as different from the soul
principle, and not that it is a female dancer. Samkhyais a system of
practiceaimed at the liberation(moksa)of the self (purusa),and reading Sdmkhyakdrikdas a piece of poetry means to fail to understand
Samkhya as a religious system of practice.
Prakrti transformsitself into the world. Things of the world such
as rivers, agriculturalfields, earth, etc., are productsof prakrti. But
prakrti is not the direct material cause of these things. According
to Samkhya, the first materialproductof prakrti is intellect (buddhi)
and intellect transformsitself into egoity (ahamkara). Egoity transforms itself into sense-capacities and subtle elements (tanmatra-s).
Tanmdtra-stransformthemselves into gross elements (mahabhuta-s).
Rivers and agriculturalfields are transformationsof the gross elements. Therefore althoughprakrti is the ultimate materialcause of
rivers and agriculturalfields, it is not the directmaterialcause. Gross
elements are productsof subtle elements which are productsof egoity.
The argumentthat because rivers and agriculturalfields are particularly connected to the female in Hindu mythology, thereforeprakrti
is particularlyconnected to the female, is not valid.
Prakrtiin Samkhyaand Yoga has also othernames: pradhana (n),
avyakta (n) and alinga (n). If prakrtiwas a female person why would
she be called by these neuternames? The grammaticalfeminine gender of prakrti is due to the "ti" suffix and is purely grammatical.In
Sanskritgrammaticalgender does not coincide with gender identities
in the world.28Vyaktimeans an individual,including a male person,
but is likewise the feminine grammaticalgender because of the "ti"
suffix. The Sanskrit word for female breasts is stana (m) and for
beard is mdsuri (f), but no-one would say beard is a characteristicof
female beings and female breasts of males. In the Sanskritlanguage
There is also noth"the assignment of genders is purely arbitrary."29
ing "feminine",or for that sake "masculine"in most of the synonyms
of prakrti, except in a purely grammaticalsense. The predicates of
avyakta (prakrti) in SK 10 and 11 like "without a cause" (ahetumat), "eternal"(nitya), "withouttransmigration"(niskriya), "single"
66
KnutA. Jacobsen
(eka), "ultimate"(alinga), "independent"(svatantra), "consisting of

the three constituents"(triguna), "non-different"(avivekin), "object"
(visaya), "withoutconsciousness"(acctana), "productive"(prasavadharmin), etc., or the predicates and synonyms of prakrti in Proto
Samkhya sources such as "firm"(akampa), "imperishable"(aksara),
"undecaying"(aksaya), etc., are neither "feminine"nor "neuter"nor
"masculine"except in a grammaticalsense. Few of the attributesof
prakrti have any association to anything"female",and the attributes
of being "productive"(prasavadharmin)and "field"(ksetra) are only
two of its many characteristics. The dualism between prakrti and
purusa is not originally an expression of the female-male duality,but
prakrtiandpurusa became epithets of the female-maledivine couple.
3. Some Meanings of the Term "Prakrti"
Prakrti in Samkhya is a technical term for the ultimate material
principle. But what other meaning did this Sanskritterm have? The
term in the earliest texts (phonetics, grammar,ritual texts), which
may of course not carrythe "original"meaning, meant simply "first",
"original","in its naturalstate". The adjectiveprakrtiin the sense of
"original"or "normal"is already in use in the Satapatha Brahmana
(800 B.C.E.?) 1.1.2.7. (etar hi prakrtani) and 2.2.5.1. (prakrto 'svamedha).30The Vedic religion centeredaroundthe techniqueof sacrifice. This techniquewas consideredso powerfulthat even the activity
of the divinities could be controlled by it. In this traditionprakrti
was used in a technical sense from the period of the Veddnga-s(from
around500 B.C.E.). In phonetics, grammar,and ritualtheoryprakrti
had nothing to do with any feminine principle. It referred to unchanged sounds, stems of words and specific sacrifices. In Phonetics
the phonetically unalteredsound is prakrti. In grammar(vyakarana)
the roots and stems from which, when suffixes and prefixes are added,
numerous words are produced, are called prakrti. The Grammarof
Panini derived all the forms of the Sanskritlanguage from the operation of affixes (pratyaya)andbases (prakrti).31The separationof roots
was thereforethe most imporand affixes (prakrti-pratyaya-vibhaga)
tant work of grammar. The bases are of two kinds: verbal (dhdtu)
67
and nominal (pratipadika).The rules in Astddhyaylshow how affixes

are added to bases (prakrti)to generate correctly inflected forms of
the language.
In texts dealing with instructions and explanation of the Vedic
rituals, prakrti means "the archetypal"or "model sacrifices". In
Jaimini'sMimdmsasutra,prakrti is used in a large numberof sutra-s
in the sense of paradigmaticoriginal sacrifice.32The model (prakrti)
is the archetypeon which the modified sacrifices (vikrti-s)are based.
Prakrti-s are the sacrifices whose processes are related in full in the
Vedic statementsenjoining them. Purvatva(7.1.11, 8.1.28), the prior
or model sacrifice, apurva (8.3.25, 9.3.20), the first and anuttara
(8.4.15), the principal, are sometimes used as synonyms of prakrti.
Darsapurnamdsa,the new and full moon sacrifices,are the archetype
for all the sacrifices of oblations (isti-s). Agnistoma is the archetype
for the soma sacrifice, and niru.dhapasubandha is the archetypefor
the animal sacrifices (pasuyajna). Prakrtimeans here the model from
which innumerablemodified sacrifices are derived. The details and
accessories which are necessary to perform the modified sacrifices
(vikrti-s)but which are not found prescribed,are broughtin or transferred from the model sacrifices (prakrti). This process is called
atidesa. The general law of transferenceis: the modified sacrifice is
to be performedaccording to the model sacrifice (prakrtivadvikrtih
kartavya).33BaudhdyanaSrauta Sutra 24.5 says: "Thatwhich is the
paradigm(prakrti)is the precedent,and that which one creates from
The principlesof model (prakrti)and derived
it, is the subsequent."34
sacrifice (vikrti) relate all sacrifices to each other.
A relateduse of prakrtiis found in the texts of the medical schools.
In the medical literatureprakrti means "physicalhealth","one's natural condition", and is contrastedto disease (vikrti, vikdra). Caraka
Samhita (100-200 C.E.), Vimanasthana8.88, says that the disturbance of the equilibrium of the dhatu-s is invariablyindicated by
the onset of disease (dhatu-vaisayamlaksanamvikdrdgamah),35and
Caraka Samhitd,Suftrasthdna,16.17 says after describingthe proper
treatmentthat "his normalhealthis restored"(prakrtiscdnuvartate).36
68
KnutA. Jacobsen
Prakrti means also one's constitution and temperamentas determined by the mortality factors (dosa-s). Seven types (prakrti) of
persons are distinguishedaccordingto which of the dosa-s predominate.
To maintain good health, it is said, one should always remember
one's own nature (prakrtimabhiksnamsmaret, Caraka Samhitd,Sutrasthana, 8.27).37In the Ayurvedictexts prakrti means the normal,
ordinarypattern,the naturalway, the natureof the person,his physical
constitution,and his health. CarakaSamhitdsays: "Disease (vikdra)
is the disequilibriumof constituents(dhatu-s) and their equilibrium
is health (prakrti)."38
In Jainism prakrti is used to denote matter in the form of karman. In Jainism karman is material stuff (pudgala) that binds and
produces changes in the soul. Walter Schubring explains that "by
the merging with matter the beings are subjected to the karman. If
they were not charged with karman the souls would lead that existence in the highest possible regions attributedto the kevalin after
his parting from the world."39Before it enters the soul the karman
stuff is undifferentiated.Variousnaturesor types (prakrti)of karman
are molded from this karman matter after interactionwith the soul
has begun. The Jains explain that bondage of the soul can be understood from four points of view, one of which is prakrti.40The specific
nature (prakrti) assumed by the previously undifferentiatedkarman
matteris determinedby the type of activity performed.The natureof
karmicmatteris first divided into eight kinds (mulaprakrti-s)(knowledge obscuring, perceptionobscuring,energy obstructing,belief and
conduct obstructing, durationof life determining, body type determining, family type determining,and pain and pleasure producing),
and these eight kinds are subdividedinto 148 main classes called the
148 prakrti-s.
In the Pali scriptureof Buddhism,prakrti(pakati)means "regular",
"normal","unrestrained","common","original",etc. It is often said
that Buddhism absorbedmuch of the popularmythology of ancient
India, and it is thereforesignificantthat the use of pakati in the Pali
69
scripture shows no influence of any mythology of a female divine

principle called prakrti.41
According to the teaching of the science of politics of Arthas'stra
(300 C.E.), the state (rdjya)is constitutedby seven elements (prakrti-s
or anga-s).42 This list with small variationsis found in several texts
and seems to refer to an established doctrine.43There is a tendency
to believe that these elements are ordered hierarchically,the king
being the highest, then the minister,etc., and that they possess productive force. Manusmrti(9.295) and Kautilya Arthasdstra(8.1.5)
note that "each earlier named is more important"(purvam,purvam
gurutaram/gariyah),and when calamities befall or any of the seven
elements deteriorate,those thatbefall the precedingelements are more
serious. The prakrti-s are also the generativecauses of the kingdom
without which the kingdom would not be, as the gold is the cause
of the earring. The kingdom arises and collapses according to the
arising and dissolution of the elements (king, minister,army,etc.).
That prakrti is a word concerning the field of birth and production was well known by Panini (350 B.C.E.). He discussed
the rules of grammaticalcases associated with material cause and
production.44Prakrti means materialcause also in the Brahmasttra
and Vaisesikasutra.In Brahmasutra,the materialcause is that which
is in its original form, the base, while in Vaisesikasutra,material
cause means the combinationof causal factors.45
From the evidence of the history of the word prakrti it is clear
that it did not originally mean "the female" nor was it particularly
associated with anything "female".
4. The Feminizationof Prakrti
In contemporaryIndia prakrti means nature, character,material
cause, but it is also understoodto refer to women or something feminine. K.M. Ganguli (PratapChandraRoy) writes in a footnote to
his translationof the Mahdbhdrata: "Womenin almost all the dialects of India derivedfrom Sanskrit,are commonly called Prakrtior
symbols of Prakrti, thus illustratingthe extraordinarypopularityof
70
KnutA. Jacobsen
the philosophical doctrine about Prakrti and Purusa."46 It has to be

asked, when the identificationof prakrti with the feminine occurred.
If the prakrtiof Sarmkhyawas not thoughtof as feminine, what events
caused prakrti and the feminine to be identified? The identification
seems to have been caused by the arising of Saktism and Tantrism.
Prakrtiis not a personalname of a goddess in the Hindu tradition,
that is, there is no goddess with the name prakrti in the Hindu tradition, of whom images (murti-s)are made or to whom worship (pjda)
is performed,but prakrti is adopted as one of the epithets of female
divinities. The material principle was, as such, identified with various female divinities (Durga, Laksmi, Radha, Parvati, etc.).47This
use is associated with Purdna-s, Agama-s, Samhita-s and especially
Sakta texts and the use of the epithet prakrti is, probably, a sign
of the ongoing process of Sanskritizationof religious cults.48The
Devl-Mdhatmyasection of the MarkandeyaPurana (500-600 C.E.?)
is probably the earliest example of this type of devotional texts in
which prakrti is used as an epithet of a female divinity.49
The termprakrti of Classical Samkhya was adoptedby these religious cults but the meaning was transformedin the theological speculations into ideas about divinity, in which goddesses personify a
female principle identified with prakrti and gods a male principle
identified with purusa. The creation myth in which creation takes
place after the first being (the self [atman] in the form of a person)
has transformedhimself into a human male-female pair, and thereafter into the male-female pair of different species such as cow/bull,
mare/stallion, she-ass/he-ass, she-goat/he-goat, etc., first described
in BrhaddranyakaUpanisad, is found subsequentlyin many texts.50
In BrhaddranyakaUpanisad 1.4.17 it is said thatthe self (atman),existing alone in the beginning, desired a wife in order to procreate.51
In Prasna Upanisad 1.4, upon answering the question from what
source creaturescome from (kuto ha va imdhprajdh prajayante), it
is said that Prajapati,desirous of offspring, performedausterityand
produced a pair, matter (rayi) and life (prana), thinking "these two
will make creatures for me in manifold ways."52In later texts the
female in this creation myth is sometimes called prakrti. The Linga
71
Purana 5.28-33 says thatin the beginningof the creationBrahmahad

created a being with a body half man's and half woman's. Then the
creator said: Divide yourself. By dividing himself in two, a female
was bor. The text says that all the women in the world are born
of the female part. Everything feminine in gender is she herself.53
In late texts devoted to the goddess the female divine beings as well
as female humanbeings are identifiedwith a principlecalled prakrti,
which, in these texts, is a term for what can, perhaps,be called "the
female principle". In the Saiva and Sakta systems, Siva and Sakti
are not two distinct ultimate principles but they are two aspects of
the absolute reality. In these systems the absolute truthis the union
of Siva and Sakti. The male and the female in the visible world
representa polarity present in the natureof the absolute as Siva and
Sakti.54Thus all men and women are the physical manifestationof
the ontological principles Siva and Sakti, Krsna and Radha, Purusa
and Prakrti. The female principle is the dynamic active principle
and in popular theology Sakti, Radha, and Prakrtiall refer to this
same principle.55The world proceeds from the union of Purusa and
Prakrtiwhich is bliss, and accordingto some schools such as the Sahajiya, men should realize their truenatureas Krsnaand women their
true natureas Radha, and the love that exists between such men and
women becomes divine love and the realizationof such an emotion
becomes the ultimate religious goal.56Dasgupta refers to a creation
myth found in a late text, Ghanarama,where it is told how, in the
primordial void, the supreme god first revealed himself in a form
which contained the potency of all creation. The divinity desired to
create and from his desire for creationwas born Prakrtiin the form of
a most beautiful and charmingwoman. The divinity was disturbedat
the sight of her beauty, and throughhis disturbance,Prakrti was infused with the three constituents(guna-s) from which the three gods
Brahma,Visnu and Siva were born.57The principle of matteris here
identified with the "female principle".
According to AhirbudhnyaSamhitd,prakrti is a power (sakti) of
God, by which he has originated the world.58In the goddess cults
manifested in texts such as Devi-Mdhdtmyaand Laksmi Tantra,the
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KnutA. Jacobsen
goddess is the primordialmatter(prakrti)that evolves into creation,

but she also transcendsmatter.59According to Paficaratra,Narayana
is endowed with a power (sakti) called prakrti which is identified
with Laksmi or Sri.60
Part of the confusion about the termprakrti is that it is used often

for the twenty-fourthprinciple,i.e., the prakrtiof Sarmkhya,as material cause in general and for the sakti, the female power. Accordingto
R. Giri four phases of Sakti are describedin the Purina-s.61In the first
phase, Sakti is identifiedwith the ultimatereality and is non-different
from this reality. In the second phase, it is a power of the ultimate
reality (Siva). In the third,Sakti is an instrumentof his play and Sakti
is called Brahmani,Laksmi, Rudrani,etc. In the fourth phase, it is
prakrti or the material cause of the world, identified with the muila
prakrti of Samkhya. This is however an idealized pattern,and Giri
correctlynotes that, "sometimesthe word Prakrtiis used for the first,
second or the third Phase of Sakti."62In the Siva Purdna-s prakrti
often refers to Uma, Girija,Mahadevi,and Mahamayato denote any
of the phases of manifestation.63This loose terminologycharacterizes
also the Agama-s, Samhitd-sand the Tantra-s,and is well illustrated
text LaksmiTantra.Prakrtiin this text is both an epin the Panicaratra
ithet of Laksmi and a name of the twenty-fourthprinciple. In Laksmi
Tantra4.51, Laksmi says she is called prakrti since she is the material cause of the universe. In 6.42-44, on the other hand, thirty-five
elements are listed ending with the highest Bhagavan. Here prakrti
is the twenty-fourthprinciple following the Samkhya system while
mayd is the twenty-sixth and sakti who is the Mahalaksmi, is the
thirty-secondprinciple.64In the systems of KashmirSaivism, prakrti
is the twenty-fourthas in Samkhya,but these systems accept a total
of thirty-sixprinciples. According to these systems, sakti, mdyd, and
prakrti become manifested in a hierarchicalorder. The thirty-sixth
principle is Siva. The thirty-fifthto thirty-secondprinciples are dominated by sakti, the divine energy, which polarizes reality into subject
and object. The thirty-firstto twenty-sixth principles are dominated
by mdyd which conceals the divine nature. While these principles
belong to the cosmos, the twenty-fifthprinciple,purusa, is the indi-
73
vidual subject and the twenty-fourth,prakrti,is the foundationof the

objective experience of the individual. The twenty-third,to the final
first earth principle are similar to the Samkhya and Samkhya-Yoga
principles. These principleshave been broughtforth by the divine.65
This process of manifestation,is caused, accordingto Abhinavagupta,
by the free will of Siva, who is both the material and instrumental
cause of the world.66
When prakrti is personified as a goddess, she is prayed to as
a divine power.67In the late texts Devi Bhagavata Purtna (10001700 C.E.) and the BrahmavaivartaPurana (1300-1500 C.E.), prakrti
is a name of a divine feminine principle, a goddess.68At the beginning of creation the Paratmandivided himself into a male and
female half. His left side was the female prakrti. In the Prakrti
Khanda (1) of BrahmavaivartaPurdna and the ninth book of Devi
Bhagavata Purdna (9.1.1), it is said that the entirePrakrticonsists of
five parts.69The five manifestationsof her are the goddesses Radha,
Laksmi, Sarasvati,Savitri and Durga. These goddesses are called the
five highest prakrti-s. Sasthi Devi is later said to be a sixth part of
prakrti (1.71-95).70Also the goddesses Gafiga,Tulasi Devi, Manasa,
Mangala Chandika, etc., are said to be part both of the five highest prakrti-s and of the mulaprakrti.The modificationsof prakrti in
these texts are female goddesses. Also women in general are said to
be incarnationsof the goddess Prakrti since Prakrti descends to the
world in the form of women. The descriptions of prakrti in these
texts are descriptionsof goddesses and women.
The ascriptionof a female quality to the conceptprakrtiis historically late in appearance.It seems to express a mergingof a philosophical principle and mythological figures, namely the Samkhyaprakrti
and traditions of goddess worship and Tantrism. It has been suggested by several authorsthat the association of the termprakrtiwith
the goddess was dependenton the Samkhyasystem, in which prakrti
was the material cause and thus related to the field of productivity
and on the sanskritizationof the various goddess traditions.71This
process is detectable at an early stage in the Devl-Mdhatmya,a text
in which prakrti is used as an epithet of the goddess. Prakrti be-
74
Knut A. Jacobsen
came a name for goddesses and women in general, but this use is
late. The Brahmavaivarta Purana derives all goddesses and women
from an original cause called Prakrti which is here a cosmic female
principle. But this text is late, probably from the 15th-17th century.
How late in time this process occurred can be illustrated with the
fact that Radha who together with Krsna is the main character of the
text, in the purdnic literature is mentioned no earlier than the thirteenth century.72The process of feminization of prakrti has been well
synthesized by Brown:
In the older Samkhya school, prakrti had been contrastedwith purusa, spirit,
not in sexual terms but rather as the material over against the efficient cause
of the universe. Though purusa was regardedas a masculine principle, being
masculine in gender and literally meaning ("man"),prakrti was not thought of
as specifically feminine in essence, despite its feminine gender. ... Gradually,
however, prakrti became 'feminized' as it was increasingly identified with the
"womb of the world" (jagad-yoni), and thus materialnature was interpretedas
maternalnature or Mother Nature. Finally, prakrti came to be associated with
various goddesses, such as Devi or Durga. Prakrti is no longer the insentient
material principle, but a conscious, animatingforce within all matter. Furthermore, prakrtiis now relatedto purusa not so much as materialto efficient cause,
but as a woman to man and as creatorto procreator.73
That prakrti is no longer an unconscious material principle but a

conscious animating force means that it has been identified with sakti,
the female power which ultimately is both consciousness and activity.
Sakti is a power of consciousness in Tantrism, because everything is
ultimately consciousness and because Siva is both knowledge (jiana)
and activity (kriya), two in one.
The post-Samkhya religious developments meant that the identity
of being feminine in a different sense than just the grammatical, was
ascribed to the term prakrti. A similar development seems to have
occurred in Tantric Buddhism but here the dynamic pole was identified with the male and the female principle was not conceived of as a
sakti. Thus in Tantric Buddhism wisdom (prajna) was identified with
the passive female and skillful means (updya) was identified with the
active male. It seems that this personification of prajn~das a female
goddess and upaya as a male god was caused by a similar process of
75
personifying abstractconcepts which in their origin were not thought

of in terms of gender, except in a grammaticalsense, and were unrelated to mythological figures. Since the terms had little to do with
personificationin the original speculations, when they became personified, the grammaticalgender of the terms was, perhaps, one of
the factors that influenced which of the terms would become male
and female. This helps explaining that upaya, the dynamic principle,
became the male and prajid, the static principle,became the female,
thus representingTantricBuddhismas a reversalof the HinduTantric
speculations.74When the paradigmof man and woman has been chosen to illustratethe polarityof the absolutethen the static anddynamic
aspect of the creative function of the absolute have to be assigned to
either the male or the female, respectively. It can be arguedthat the
fact that the static principle in TantricBuddhism is female and the
dynamic is male shows that the polar symbolism is primaryand the
assignment of functions of less importance.Thus also the reversalof
gender ascriptionof the passive and active principle in TantricBuddhism suggests that the female-male sexual polaritywas added to the
Samkhya concepts of prakrti and purusa which originally were not
thought of in terms of gender or sexual symbolism.
University of Oslo
Departmentof CulturalStudies
P.O. Box 1010, Blinder
N-0315 Oslo, Norway
* The authorwishes to thankthe ResearchCouncil of
KNUTA. JACOBSEN
Norway for supportingthe

researchfor this article.
1 AndrePadoux, Vac: The
Conceptof the Wordin Selected Hindu Tantras,trans.
Jacques Gontier (Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, 1990), 39.
2
Douglas Renfrew Brooks, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introductionto
Hindu Sakta Tantrism(Chicago: The Universityof New YorkPress, 1990), 3.
3 Ibid.
4 Paul EduardoMuller-Ortega,The TriadicHeart of Siva (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 49.
5 Friedhelm
Hardy,"The Classical Religions of India,"in The WorldReligions:
The Religions of Asia, ed. FriedhelmHardy (London: Routledge, 1990), 121.
KnutA. Jacobsen
76
6 Andre Padoux, Vac, 43.

7 Shashibhusan
Dasgupta, Obscure Religious Cults, 3rd ed. (Calcutta: Firma
KLM, 1969), 333.
8 GeraldJamesLarson,"Introductionto the Philosophyof Samkhya,"in Samkhya:
A Dualist Traditionin IndianPhilosophy, ed. GeraldJamesLarsonand Ram Shankar
Bhattacharya,Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol. 4 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1987), 65.
9 KamalakarMishra, Significance of the TantricTradition(Varanasi:Ardhanarisvara Publications, 1981), 45.
10
Hardy,"The Classical Religions of India,"121.
1l Mark S.G. Dyczkowski, The Doctrine of Vibration:An Analysis of the Doctrines and Practices of KashmirShaivism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,1989), 100.
12 Mishra,
Significance of the TantricTradition.
3 Ibid., 141.
14
Agehananda Bharati, TantricTraditions,rev. and enl. ed. (Delhi: Hindustan
Publishing, 1993), 207.
15 DebiprasadChattopadhyaya,Lokayata:A Studyin Ancient IndianMaterialism
(Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1959), 62. The transliterationof Sanskritwords
has been changed in the quotes when deviating from the standardtransliteration
system to make the same words appearwith the same spelling throughoutthe article.
16 Ibid.
17 N.N.
Bhattacharyya,History of the TantricReligion (Delhi: Manohar, 1987),

113.
18
History of the Sckta Religion (Delhi: MunshiramManoharlal,1974), 17.
19
History of the TantricReligion, 113.
20
Ibid., ix.
21 Ibid.
22 William P. Harman,The Sacred
Marriage of a Hindu Goddess (Bloomington

and Indianapolis:IndianaUniversity Press, 1989), 10.
23 Kathleen M. Erndl,
Victoryto the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of Northwest
India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbol (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 31.
24 R.J. Parrott,'The Worth of the World in Classical
Samkhya,"Annals of the
BhandarkarOriental Research Institute71 (1990), 105-106.
25
Ajit Mookerjee and Madhu Khanna, The Tantric Way: Art, Science, Ritual
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 15-16.
26 C. Mackenzie Brown, The
Triumphof the Goddess: The Canonical Models
and Theological Visionsof the Devi-BhagavataPurana (Albany: State Universityof
New York Press, 1990), 31, 216-218.
27 samkhya vadanti purusam prakrtimca yam tam caitanya bhava-rahitamjagatas ca kartrim, kim tadrsa'si katham atra jagan-nivdsas caitanyata-virahitovihitas tvaya'dya. Devi-Bhagavata Purana 1.7.29, Atha Devibhagavatam(Bombay:
77
SriveikatesvaraSteam Press; repr.Bombay: KhemarajaSrikrsnadasa,1983), part 1,

p. 19. Trans. C. Mackenzie Brown, The Triumphof the Goddess, 31.
28 "In Sanskrit the grammaticalgender does not coincide with sex, and words
referringto the same object may occur in differentgenders."HaroldG. Cowardand
K. Kunjunni,"Introductionto the Philosophyof the Grammarians,"
in ThePhilosophy
ed.
Harold
G.
Coward
and
K.
Grammarians,
of
Kunjunni,Encyclopedia of Indian
vol.
5
Motilal
Banarsidass,
(Delhi:
1990), 12.
Philosophies,
29 V.S. Apte, The Student's Guide to Sanskrit Composition, (Varanasi: Chowkhamba SanskritSeries Office, 1984), 2.
30 A.B. Keith writes: "The adjectiveprakrta in the SatapathaBrahmanareveals
the existence of the conceptionPrakrti,'groundform', laterfamous in the Samkhya."
The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads (1915; reprint, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1989), 483. HermannOldenbergis of the same opinion: "Fir
die Existenz von prakrti "Grundform,Grundursache"zeugt das abgeleiteteprakrta
"urspriinglich,nattirlich"(mehrfach in SB)." Die Weltanschauungder BrahmanaTexte (Gottingen: Vandenhoekund Ruprecht,1919), 228.
31 Harold G. Coward and K.
Kunjunni,"Introductionto the Philosophy of the
Grammarians,"in Cowardand Kunjunni,The Philosophy of the Grammarians,15.
32 The Mimdmsa-Sutrasof Jaimini, 3.2.28, 3.3.19, 3.3.23, 3.3.24, 3.6.2, 3.6.8,
3.6.9, 3.6.10, 3.6.14, 3.6.16, 3.7.44, 3.8.34, 3.8.44, 5.1.15, 5.1.18, 5.1.19, 5.2.18,
5.2.19, 5.2.22, 5.3.40, 5.4.22, 5.4.25, 6.5.10, 6.6.54, 6.7.15, 6.7.39, 7.3.13, 7.3.21,
7.4.1, 7.4.10, 8.3.9, 8.3.10, 8.3.12, 8.4.15, 8.4.16, 9.2.48, 9.3.1, 9.3.12, 9.3.20, 9.4.1,
9.4.6, 9.4.18, 10.1.45, 10.1.57, 10.2.15, 10.2.17, etc.
33 See P.V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra2d ed. (Poona: BhandarkarOriental
Research Institute, 1973), vol. 2.2, 1009-90 for discussion of the Darsapumramasa
sacrifices, 1133-1203 for Agnistomasacrifices, and 1109-1132 for Nirt.dhapdsubandha. On the relation between the prakrti and vikrti SurendranathDasgupta writes:
"There are two kinds of sacrifices called prakrti and vikrti. Prakrti is that kind
of sacrifice in which all accessories are mentioned fully, such as darSapuimamasa.
Vikrtiis that kind of sacrifice in which the details are not mentioned, but the details of the mantra is (sic) to be imagined by the analogy of the prakrti sacrifice."
The Mahqbhdsyaof Patafijaliwith Annotations, 11. Dasguptanotes that the mantra
is to be formulatedon analogy of the mantra of the prakrti, which implies grammatical changes like agnaye tvd to siurayatvd. "Such a change cannot be made if
the sacrificer has no knowledge of grammar."Ibid., 10. See also GanganathaJha,
Purva-Mimdmsain Its Sources (Varanasi: The Banaras Hindu University, 1964),
289. S.G. Moghe defines atidesa as "the rule on the basis on which the details of
the Prakrti-ydga(originalyaga) are transferredto the Vikrti-ydga(modifiedyaga)."
"The Evolution of the MimamsaTechnicalTermAtidesa,"Annals of the Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Institute58-59 (1977-78): 777.
78
KnutA. Jacobsen
34 Quoted in Brian K. Smith, Reflections on Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 125.

35
Agnivesa's Caraka Samhitd: Textwith English Translationand Critical Exposition Based on CakrapaniDatta's AyurvedaDipika, 3 vols., ed. R.K. Sharmaand
V.B. Dash (Varanasi:ChowkhambaSanskritSeries Office, 1976), vol. 2, 258.
36 Ibid., vol. 1, 303.
37 Ibid., vol. 1, 179.
38 Vikarodhdtu-vaisamyamsamyamprakrtirucyate (CarakaSamhitd,Sutrasthana
9.4). Ibid., vol. 184.
39 WaltherSchubring,TheDoctrine of the Jainas, trans.WolfgangBeurlen (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1962), 173.
40 (There are four) kinds of that (bondage) according to nature (prakrti) (of
karmanmatter),duration(sthiti) (of the attachmentof karmicmatterto the soul), the
fruition (anubhava) (being strong or mild), and the number (pradesa) (of karman
molecules which attachto the soul), prakrti-sthity-anubhava-pradesas
tad-vidhayah.
8.3. Tattvarthadhigama
Tattvdrthasutram
Sutra,A Treatiseof the Essential Principles
of Jainism by UmasvamiAcharya, ed. and trans. J.L. Jaini (1920, repr. New York:
AMS Press, 1974), 158.
41 For a discussion of pakati see Knut A. Jacobsen, "OrdinaryNature: Pakati in
the Pali Scripture,"Asian Philosophy, 3 (1993): 75-87.
42 svamy-amdtya-janapada-durga-kosa-danda-mitrani
prakrtayah (Arthas'astra
6.1.1.). The king, the minister,the country,the fortified city, the treasury,the army
and the ally are the constituentelements (prakrti-s). The KautiliyaArthasastra,ed.
and trans. R.P. Kangle, 3 vols. (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960-1965).
43 Manusmrti9.294 reads: svamy-amatyaupuram rastram kosa-dandau suhrt
tatha, sapta prakrtayohy etah saptdngamrajyam ucyate. ManusmrtiWiththe Sanskrit CommentaryManvartha-Muktavallof KulliikaBhatta, ed. J.L. Shastri (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass,1983), 395. Kane notes that the list is found also in Visnudharmasutra 3.33, Matsyapurana225.11, Yajiavalkyasmrti1.353, Agnipurana 233.12.
P.V. Kane, History of Dharmasdstra,vol. 3, 17.
44 Janikartuh
prakrtih. The material cause (prakrti) of the agent of the verb
born
be
to
(vjan) (is in the ablative case [apadana karaka]). The Astadhyayi
of Panini, 1.4.30, p. 179, tad-arthamvikrtehprakrtau. When the material cause
(prakrti) is serviceable for the modification (vikrti), it is in the dative case. Astadhyayi, 5.1.12, p. 854.
45
(Brahmanis) the materialcause also,
prakrtis ca pratijnfidrstdntdnuparodhat.
not
to
the
it
(because is)
contradictory
proposition and illustrations (cited in the
The
Veddntastitras
1.4.23.
Brahmasutra
texts).
of Badarayana, Sanskrit and EnNew
York:
AMS
Vasu
trans.
S.C.
Press, 1974), 204. bhuyastvad
(1912; repr.,
glish,
ca
gandhavatvac prthivi-gandha-jiane prakrtih. By reason of its predominance,
and of possession of smell, earth is the material cause of the olfactory sense.
79
Vaisesikasutra8.2.5, trans. N.L. Sinha. The VaisesikaSuitrasof Kandda with the

Commentaryof Sankara Misra and Extractsfrom the Gloss of Jayanardyana. Together with Notesfrom the Commentaryof the Chandrakdntaand an Introductionby
the Translator,Sanskrit and English, trans. Nanalal Sinha (Allahabad: The Panini
Office, 1911; repr.,New York: AMS Press, 1974), 285.
46 The Mahabharataof Krishna-DwaipayanaVyasa (Calcutta:OrientalPublishing Co., 1883-1896), vol. 9, 97.
47 S.B. Dasgupta, Obscure Religious Cults, 332, writes: "It should be noted...
that the word Prakrtiin classical Sanskritliteratureas well as in the Puranicliterature
became frankly synonymous with the word Sakti or Adi-devi, the primordialgoddess." For an excellent study of the epithets of the goddess see Thomas B. Coburn,
Devi-Mdhdtmya:The Crystallizationof the Goddess Tradition(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984).
48 Coburnwrites: "Thatthe basic impulse behind the worship of the Goddess is
of non-Aryan,non-Sanskritic,indigenous origin-is a matteron which the opinion
of scholarship,both Indian and Western, is virtually unanimous."Devi-Mdhatmya:
The Crystallizationof the Goddess Tradition,7. The Sanskritizationof the feminine
divinities was accomplished to make the worship of the Goddess orthodox and the
Sanskritictraditionpopular.The techniqueused for this purpose was to use ancient
Sanskritterminology. The epithetprakrti related the goddess to the Samkhyaspeculations about matter. Coburnwrites: "The primarymeans it [Devi-Mahatmya]has
employed in this endeavouris, in fact, the use of ancient Sanskriticterminology to
describe this "new" figure of the Goddess."Ibid., 79-80.
49 The Devl-Mahdtmyawas the first comprehensiveaccount of the Goddess to
appearin Sanskrit. Ibid., 9. The date of this text is of course very uncertainand the
text might not be as old as suggested. The probablyoldest surviving manuscriptof
a Puranictext is from 810 C.E. This is a text containingpart of the SkandaPurana
but, significantly,this text does not have much in common with the printedSkanda
Purdna. See R. Adriaensen,H.T. Bakkerand H. Isaacson,"Towarda CriticalEdition
of the Skandapurdna,"Indo-lranianJournal 37 (1994): 325-331. I thank Johannes
Bronkhorstfor connecting this to a criticism of the date of the Devl-Mdhatmya.
50 BrhaddranyakaUpanisad 1.3-1.4 says: "Verily,he had no delight. Therefore
one alone has no delight. He desired a second. He was, indeed, as large as a woman
and a man closely embraced. He caused that self to fall into two pieces. Therefrom
arose a husband and a wife. ... He copulated with her. Therefromhuman beings
were produced. ... She became a cow. He became a bull. With her he did indeed
copulate. Then cattle were born. She became a mare, he a stallion. She became a
female ass, he became a male ass, with her he copulated, of a truth. Thence were
born solid-hoofed animals. She became a she-goat, he a he-goat, she a ewe, he a
ram. With her did he verily copulate. Therefromwere born goats and sheep. Thus,
indeed, he createdall, whateverpairs thereare, even down to the ants."RobertErnest
Knut A. Jacobsen
80
Hume, The ThirteenPrincipal Upanishads,2nd ed. rev. (London: Oxford University

Press, 1931), 81.
51 "In the
beginning this world was just the Self (Atman),one only: He wished:
'Would that I had a wife; then I would procreate'."Hume, The ThirteenPrincipal
Upanishads, 85.
52 Hume, The ThirteenPrincipal Upanishads,378.
53 The
Linga Purana, trans. A Board of Scholars (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973).
54 S.B.
Dasgupta, Obscure Religious Cults, xxxvi.
55 Ibid., 129-130.
56 Ibid., 132-134.
57 Ibid., 315.
58jagat-prakrti-bhdvoyah sd saktihparikiritd(AhirbudhnyaSamhitd,2.57). That
which is the materialcause of the world, that is called sakti. parama prakrtis ca sd
saktir yd vydpino visnoh sa jagat-prakrtihpara (AhirbudhnyaSamhitd 5.28). That
supremeprakrtiis the power of the all-pervadingVisnu. She is the primordialsource
of the universe. (Trans.by H.N. Chakravartyprovidedby The IndiraGandhiNational
Centre for the Arts, Varanasi). Ahirbudhnya-Samhitaof the Pdicaratrdgama, ed.
M.D. Ramanujacharya,2nd ed. rev. by V. Krishnamacharya,2 vols. (1916; repr.,
Madras: The Adyar Libraryand Research Centre, 1966), vol. 1, 19 and 44.
59 prakrtis tvam ca sarvasya gunatraya-vibhdvini(Devi-Mdhdtmya1.59). You
are the materialcause (prakrti)of everything, manifesting the triad of constituents.
V. Agrawala,Devi-Mdhdtmyam:The Glorificationof the Great Goddess (Ramnagar:
All-India KashirajTrust, 1963), 38.
60 mattah prakriyate visvam prakrtih sasmi kirtita (Laksmi Tantra4.51). The
universe is produced from me (as a 'mode' of myself), hence I am called prakrti.
Laksmi-Tantra:A Paicaratra Agama, ed. V. Krishnamacharya(Madras:The Adyar
Libraryand Research Centre, 1959), 16. Trans.Laksmi Tantra:A Padcardtra Text,
trans. and notes SanjuktaGupta (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 24-25.
61 RaghunathGiri, "Sakti (the Power) in the Philosophy of the Puranas,"Purdna
12, no. 2 (1970): 231-251.
62
Ibid., 246.
63 Ibid., 246. As Giri

correctlynotes: 'The terminologyof the Puranais not very
Hence
the
words
Prakrti,
Mday, Para, Gunavati, Vikrtivarjita(without evorigid.
lutes), Buddhitattva-janani(the motherof intellect), Sakalesvari(governess),Ambikd
(motherof three Gods), and Mula Kdrana(the primalcause) etc., are used to denote
one or other of the Phases of Sakti without any hard and fast rule."Ibid., 246-247.
64 6.42-44 says: "The elements classified according to their gross and subtle
forms numberten; the senses also numberten when divided into their cognitive and
conative groups. The inner senses are three in number. The realities propounded
81
by the Sattvatasare: prakrti,prasuti and maya; then sattva, rajas and tamas; kala,
niyati (fate), sakti, Purusa,absolute space (paramamnabhah) and Bhagavan(God)."
Laksmi Tantra:A Paicaratra Text,38.
65 nija-sakti-vaibhava-bhardd
anda-catustayamidam vibhagena,saktirmayaprakrtihprthvi ceti prabhavitamprabhuna. Paramarthasara4. This fourfold egg which
is sakti, maya, prakrti,and earthwas producedby Siva separatelyfrom the fullness of
the majesty of the innate power. The Paramdrtha-Sdraby Abhinava Gupta with the
Commentaryof Yogardja(Srinagar:The ResearchDepartmentJammuand Kashmir
State, 1916), 9.
66 na vaisamyamanapannamkdranamkdryasutaye,guna-samyatmikatena prakrtihkdranambhavet,asmdkamtu svatantresatathecchd-ksobha-samgatam,
avyaktam
and
8.254-255
ksobhitd
kdranam
8.257-258).
(Tantraloka,
gunah.
buddhitattvasya
No cause withoutlosing its balance is able to bring aboutits result. Thereforeprakrti
with the characteristicof equivalence of guna-s should be the cause (of intellect).
According to our system (KashmirSaivism) by the free will of the Lord avyakta [the
unmanifestprakrti] being agitated, the guna-s are agitated, and then they become
the cause of the principle called buddhi. The Tantralokaof Abhinavaguptawith
Commentaryby RdjdnakaJayaratha,ed. MadhusudanKaul Shastri,KashmirSeries
of Texts and Studies (Allahabad,1922), vol. 5, 174, 176. Translationby Chakravarty
provided by The IndiraGandhiNational Centre for the Arts, Varanasi.
67 namah prakrtyai bhadrayai niyatdhpranatdh sma tdm (Devi-Mdhatmya5.7).
Hail to prakrti,the auspicious! We who are restrainedbow down to her. V. Agrawala,
Devl-Mdhdtmyam: The Glorification of the Great Goddess, 76. Trans. Thomas
B. Coburn,Encounteringthe Goddess (Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress,
1991), 53.
68 The dates
suggested by Brown, The Triumphof the Goddess, 225.
69 BrahmavaivartaPurana, ed. V.G.
Apte (Poona: AnandasramaSanskrit Series, 1935). Trans. R.N. Sen, Sacred Books of the Hindus, vol. 24, part 1 and 2
(Allahabad: The Panini Office, 1920-22; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1974),
part 1, Brahma and Prakriti Khandas, 83-89; The Sri Mad Devi Bhagavatam,797810.
70
Ibid., 86.
71 Thomas B. Cobur, Devi-Mthatmya: The Crystallizationof the Goddess Tra-
dition, Bharati, Tantric Traditions,205; C. Mackenzie Brown, "The Theology of

Radha in the Puranas,"in The Divine Consort: Rddhdand the Goddesses of India,
ed. John StrattonHawley and Donna Marie Wulff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986),
65-66.
72 Brown, "The Theology of Radha in the Puranas,"61.
73 Brown, "The Theology of Radha in the Puranas,"65-66.
74 For a discussion of some other factors explaining this reversal see Bharati,
TantricTraditions,199-227.
Review article
THE UBIQUITOUS 'DIVINE MAN 1
JAAP-JANFLINTERMAN
ERKKIKOSKENNIEMI,
Apollonios von Tyana in der neutestamentlichenExegese. Forschungsberichtund Weiterfiihrungder Diskussion. WissenschaftlicheUntersuchungenzum Neuen Testament.2. Reihe 61. J.C.B.
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tiibingen 1994. ISBN 3-16-145894-X
GRAHAM
ANDERSON,
Sage, saint and sophist. Holy men and their associates
in the early RomanEmpire. Routledge, London/New York 1994. ISBN
0-415-02372-6
Introduction
In a note to the second chapterof Pagans and Christians,Robin Lane Fox
complainedthat 'the ubiquitous"divineman" ' was in need of 'much clearer
definition'.2Although one can hardlyescape the impressionthat the British
scholar welcomed the opportunityto disregarda set of phenomena which
did not fit into his picture of pagan religiosity of the early Imperialperiod,
there can be no doubt that he put his finger on a sore spot. Despite decades
of scholarly exertions, the 0Eloq av&qp
remains an elusive and controversial
To
a
is
this
related
to the role of the 'divine man' in the
extent,
figure.
large
debate on the backgroundto New TestamentChristologies: the suggestion
that pagan conceptions could have influenced earliest Christianitywasand still is-bound to spark off polemic. As Lane Fox's remarksuggests,
however, the usefulness of the concept in understandingpagan conceptions
and realities has been exposed to criticism as well. Some of the problems
involved were sketched by one of the leading proponentsof its utilization
in New Testamentstudies, Morton Smith, in an article published in 1971.
In the first place, Smith pointed out that the evidence for the activities
of 'divine men' is sparse-a situation that he explained by referring to
'the snobbishness of the literarytraditionof antiquity'.3Secondly, he drew
attention to the fact that representativesof different social types 'claimed
? E. J. Brill,Leiden(1996)
NUMEN,Vol.43
The Ubiquitous Divine Man
83
or were credited with divinity',4 with the consequence that there was not a
uniform conception of the divine man, but a constantly changing complex,
encompassingmany differentpatterns,only loosely held togetherby Hellenic
anthropomorphism.5
The accuracyof this second observationwas aptly illustratedby Hans Dieter Betz, in his RAC-article'GottmenschII (Griechisch-romischeAntike u.
Urchristentum)'.6Betz marshalledrepresentativesof a bewildering variety
of social types who could each earn one of the epithets 0ElO5, aLt16ovLoc
or
EO(r7caLog,ranging from prophets and miracle-workersto royal favourites
and mistresses. Readersinclined to think thatthere was no such thing as the
divine man (or woman) were, however, sternly warned that this would be
a 'FehlschluB'.7Nevertheless, scholarship on the O?iLOavrp in the 1980s
tended to stress the fluidity of the conception of the divine man in the
Graeco-Romanworld. An interesting specimen of this approachwas the
dissertationon Origen's Contra Celsum by Eugene V. Gallagher.Gallagher
concluded that, while the search for a 'preexistentdevice or pattern'should
be considered misguided, sources from the second to fourth centuries A.D.
did show a considerableinterestin evaluatingclaims to divine status, resulting in contrastingassessments of charismaticsages and miracle-workersas
divine men on the one hand, magicians or wizards on the other. The criteria
used in such evaluations,however,dependedon the beholders' views on society, human activity and the natureof divinity and were, therefore,flexible
and subject to constantchange. Accordingto Gallagher,the only permanent
demandthat candidatesfor divine status had to meet was that their activities
were for the good of mankind,and even this criterionwas, understandably,
open to diverging interpretations.8
Although Gallagher stressed the diversity of criteria used in evaluating
claims to divinity, he concentratedhis analysis on the assessments of persons with a reputationfor miracle-workingand/orpropheticgifts, viz. Jesus
of Nazareth, Apollonius of Tyana and Alexander of Abonouteichos. He
hereby implicitly admitted the centrality of alleged achievements in these
fields to ancient debates on claims to a superhumanstatus and to modern
scholarshipon this phenomenon. At the same time, by selecting texts from
the second to fourth centuries A.D. as his main evidence, he avoided the
first problem pointed out by Morton Smith, viz. the scarcity of sources
from the period before the Antonine age on pagan miracle-workers.Even
a superficial acquaintancewith scholarly work on 'divine men' suffices to
indicate the frequent recurrenceof a few figures, in particularApollonius
84
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
of Tyana, who lived in the first century A.D., but who owes his fame in
the first place to a heavily fictionalized biography by the Severan author
Philostratus. As the reliability of Philostratus'picture of the Tyaneansage
is questionable, to say the least, the importanceof his Life of Apollonius
to the modern image of pagan charismaticsages and miracle-workersfrom
the beginning of the Christianera cannot fail to disturbscholars interested
in first-centuryfacts as opposed to third-centuryfictions. It is at this point
that the Finnish theologian Erkki Koskenniemi(K.) mounts a frontal attack
on the 'OELo;&vrphypothesis', culminatingin an attemptto eliminate pagan miracle-workersfrom the environmentin which Christianityoriginated
by relegating them to the period from the later second century A.D. onwards. Almost simultaneously,the British classicist GrahamAnderson (A.)
has published a monographon early Imperial 'holy men' from differentreligious backgrounds,defining the object of his study as 'virtuoso religious
activists' and stressing the continuityof their activities in the first three centuries A.D. Both books illustrate the topicality of the problems indicated
by Morton Smith in 1971. While the scarcity of evidence brings K. to the
conclusion that the phenomenonwas non-existent,A. tries to avoid the conceptual problems surroundingthe 'divine man' by employing a very loose
definition of the figures under discussion. Both books deserve a critical
assessment of their respective merits and shortcomings.
Driving out the Divine Man
The main drift of K.'s argumentcan be summarizedin five points.
A. The case for the existence of a Graeco-Romanconception of the O0EoS
avqp, whose divinity is manifestedin supernaturalfeats, is to a large extent
built upon Philostratus'portraitof Apollonius of Tyana.
B. The proponentsof the existence of such a conception and its influence
on New TestamentChristologies and miracle stories have insufficiently digested the results of philological studies of Philostratus'Life of Apollonius.
These studies have cast severe doubts on the reliabilityof Philostratus'portrait of Apollonius, which belongs to the third century and not to the first
century A.D.
C. While Jewish miracle-workersfrom the time of Jesus are abundantly
attested, pagan miracle-workersmentioned in ancient sources are mainly a
phenomenon of the later second and third centuries A.D.
85
D. The growthin numbersof paganmiracle-workersfrom the second half

of the second century onwards reflects a change in the religious climate.
This change can be characterisedas an intensificationof the belief in the
miraculous,a developmentwhich is also manifestedin the growthof magical
practices.
E. These findings put an end once and for all to the hypothesis that
a pagan conception of the miracle-workingOElosa&v]plurks behind New
TestamentChristologies and miracle stories.
K.'s study has noticeable merits. In the first place, though dealing with a
complex set of problems, the clarity of method and presentationis remarkable. Moreover, by bringing together the results of philological research,
studies on the history of religions and theological scholarship,K. has done
an immense service to students from these disciplines, who too often experience difficulties in keeping up with publications of their colleagues,
watching with a combinationof horrorand despairthe growing pile of studies relevant to their field by specialists in other disciplines. In this respect,
the first part of K.'s book (pp. 18-168)-a Forschungsberichtdealing with
formgeschichtliche studies of the Gospels and Philostratus'Life of Apollonius, discussions of the 'divine man', and the role of the concept in New
Testamentexegesis-fills an obvious need. Last but not least, K. successfully demonstratesseveral defects in studies by advocatesof the OEioqdavfp
hypothesis. Given the importanceof Philostratus'Life of Apollonius for the
reconstructionof the hypotheticalGraeco-Romanconception of the miracleworking 'divine man', the neglect or inadequatetreatmentof the question of
to what extent this third-centurytext reflects first-centuryconceptions and
views is a serious flaw.9The utilizationof Bieler's Gesamttypusof the OEioq
avqp, to a considerableextent compiled from the Life of Apollonius and the
Gospels,10 to clarify the evangelists' portraitof Jesus does amount to circular reasoning.'1The question of the frequencyof the phenomenonof the
pagan miracle-workerin the Hellenistic period and the early Empireis a perfectly legitimate one,12 too often answered with unsubstantiatedassertions
or references to the familiar figures of Apollonius of Tyana and Alexander
of Abonouteichos, 'to mention only two.'13To sum up, K.'s criticism of a
large part of the scholarshipon the OeioqS
avfp is a welcome antidote to a
markedtendency to substitutecontentionsfor a careful considerationof the
evidence. None the less, I think that he grossly overstateshis case, and this
review must be mainly one of dissent. Leaving the question of to what extent New TestamentChristologies and miracle stories have been influenced
86
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
by pagan conceptions to scholars competent in the field of New Testament

studies, I shall concentrateon K.'s handling of the pagan evidence, dealing
in succession with the points B, C and D mentionedabove, which are central
to his argument.
(B) The second partof K.'s book begins with a discussion of the value of
Philostratus'Life of Apollonius as evidence for the activities and opinions of
the first-centurysage from Tyana (pp. 169-189). This discussion draws on
a previous publication by K.14 and leads to the conclusion "da13das Apolloniosbild des Philostratosim wesentlichen dem 3. Jahrhundertzuzuweisen
ist."15In his scepticism regardingthe historical reliability of Philostratus'
fictionalized biography, K. follows in the footsteps of Eduard Meyer and
Ewen L. Bowie.16Like these scholars, he adheresto the view that Philostratus' claim that he had access to the memoirs of one of Apollonius' pupils,
the Syrian Damis, is a literaryfiction.17As far as the other sources on Apollonius referredto by Philostratusare concerned,K. tries to demonstratethat
even if the author of the Life of Apollonius wanted to write a historically
reliable biography,such an intentionwould have been frustratedby the state
of the evidence on the Tyaneansage in the early thirdcentury.18Combined
with the doubts surroundingPhilostratus'intentions in writing the Life of
Apollonius, this would be enough to disqualify his work as a dependable
source of informationon the historical Apollonius.
Although on this last point I find myself largely in agreement with K.,
I consider his treatmentof pre-Philostrateantraditions on Apollonius unsatisfactory. He admits (pp. 187f.) that Philostratusdid use existing traditions about Apollonius and even goes so far as to concede (p. 211) that the
Tyanean sage had a reputationas a miracle-workerin the second century.
In developing his argument,however, he seems to underestimatethe possibilities of a tentative reconstructionof the views contained in, e.g., letters
ascribed to Apollonius, the lost works of Moeragenes and Maximus of Aegae, and local traditions. If one looks for an element common to all these
traditions, it can be found precisely in the alleged supernaturalpowers of
Apollonius. In letters ascribed to Apollonius, the epistolographerdefends
himself against the accusation that he is a Pythagoreanand thus a magician (Epp. Apoll. 16 and 17). According to Origen (Cels. 6.41), the title
of Moeragenes' work was Memorabilia of Apollonius of Tyana, magician
and philosopher, and it attributedmagical powers to the protagonist.19Maximus of Aegae stressed the visionary faculties displayed by Apollonius in
the sanctuaryof Asclepius in Aegae (VA 1.10 and 12).20Local traditionin
87
Ephesus and several othercities aroundthe EasternMediterraneanknew him

as a miracle-worker.21Now there must be a point where one should confront the question of whether this recurringfeature of the pre-Philostratean
Apollonius is nothing more than a posthumous accretion. K. evades this
question (p. 188), and this also affects his handling of modern scholarship.
He borrows argumentsfrom Bowie to discredit Philostratus,but he does
not refer to the view of the British scholar that local traditionsportraying
Apollonius as a prophet and miracle-workermay very well be authentic.22
While he approves(pp. 188f.) of the method followed by the Polish scholar
Maria Dzielska, who tried to provide a picture of the historical Apollonius
primarilybased on traditionsrelating to the Tyaneanwhich are either older
than Philostratus'work or give no indicationof having been influencedby it,
he suppressesher conclusion that Apollonius was a magician.23One cannot
help but feel that, as his argumentrequires the removal of a first-century
miracle-workerfrom history, he does not ask questions which might elicit
answers detrimentalto his case.
(C) In the second chapter of the second part of his book (pp. 206-229),
K. sets out to demonstrate"daBdie heidnischenWundertater,wie wir sie in
den antikenQuellen finden,vor allem Teil des ausgehendenzweiten Jahrhunderts sind."Their activities reflect, accordingto K., 'eine allgemeine Intensivierung des Wunderglaubens'in the second century A.D. (p. 218). To
support this claim, K. offers a survey of pagan miracle-workersfrom the
Hellenistic period and the early Empire, showing that to make a reasonable
case for the presence of such figures before the second centuryis a difficult
job indeed. Again, however,several objectionsto K.'s argumentationshould
be mentioned.
In the first place, K.'s list excludes personspractisingmagical rites whose
names have not been preserved(p. 207). This is a dubiousprocedure:when
the existence of a miracle-workeris attested, our familiaritywith his name
is hardly relevant. Perhaps K.'s exclusion of anonymousmagicians is motivated by his apparentconviction (p. 83 n. 313) that "Wundertater(...)
etwas anderes [sind] als die Kennerder magischen Riten, die als Verbrecher
galten"-a curious notion, as people practisingmagic obviously were credited with the capacityto work miracles. One example may suffice to demonstrate why the omission of anonymousmagicians detractsfrom the value of
K.'s list. In the year 16 A.D., a Roman senatorby the name of Libo Drusus
was accused of subversive deeds. According to Tacitus (Ann. 2.27-32),
he had consulted astrologers,magicians-one of them a necromancer-and
88
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
dream interpreters.Libo's posthumous conviction was followed by an expulsion of astrologers and magicians from Italy- neither the first nor the
last measure of this kind.24K.'s exclusion of Jewish miracle-workers,on the
other hand, is acceptable,because it is the alleged influence of the presence
of pagan miracle-workerson earliest Christianitythat he brings under discussion (see p. 207 n. 155). Nevertheless, it tends to obscure the fact that
pagans were well representedamong the clients of Jewish miracle-workers,
Sergius Paulus being a case in point (Acta Ap. 13.6-12). At the very least,
this indicates a pagan interestin the services of miracle-workers.Ultimately,
our knowledge of the names of a number of first-centuryJewish miracleworkers, as opposed to those of their pagan colleagues, may be largely due
to the fact that the authorof Acts and Flavius Josephushad a greaterinterest
in such figures than Tacitus did. I venture the guess that if Sergius Paulus
had been called to answer for his suspect contacts with a Jewish magician
and a Christianmissionary,we would not have learnedthe names of Elymas
and Paul from Tacitus.
This brings us to a second objection to K.'s line of reasoning: it amounts
to an argumentume silentio.25 According to K., the proliferation of the
evidence for pagan miracle-workersin the second century A.D. reflects an
increase in numbers. Again, this is a dubious argument.The most important
second-centurysources on pagan miracle-workersare written in Greek, and
their protagonistscome from the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
In order for us to get acquaintedwith miracle-workers,narrativetexts are
needed. For such texts to be written, intellectuals interested in miracleworkers are required. For such texts to be handed down, they must be appreciated by posterity for literarymerit or intrinsic interest. The expansion
of our evidence may thus very well be the outcome of a combinationof two
otherdevelopments,viz. an increasein the social and intellectualrespectability of miracle-workers,and an amelioriationof the state of preservationof
pagan Greek prose literaturefrom the later first century A.D. onwards.26
A third objection to K.'s treatmentof pagan miracle-workersconcerns
his handling (p. 208) of an importantpagan miracle-workerfrom the second century B.C.: the Syrian Eunus, leader of the first Sicilian slave revolt,
portrayedby Diodorus/Posidonius.Eunus is a fine specimen of the species:
he predicts the future, he performs-or fakes-miracles, and he claims a
special relationshipwith divinity, i.e., the Syrian Goddess.27K. admits that
Eunus was a miracle-worker,but he states that his activities were determined
by an orientalcult and not by traditionalGraeco-Romanreligion, addingthat
89
the characterof the Syrian Goddess is untraceable. To start with this last
point, there can be no doubt that the goddess inspiring Eunus was Atargatis, whose cult was, in the Hellenistic period, patronizedby the Seleucid
kings and spread from Syrian Hierapolis throughoutthe Greek world: before the end of the second century B.C. it is attested in Aetolian Phistyon,
Beroia in Macedonia, in Messenia, and on the islands of Astypalaia and
Delos.28 Given the rapid spread of the goddess' cult, I question the value
of characterizingit in terms of a strict Oriental/Graeco-Romandichotomy.
Interestingly,the link between the cult of Atargatis and manumission, attested for Phistyon, Beroia and Delos, cannotbe tracedback to Hierapolis.29
Outside Syria, Atargatiscollected new names (e.g., 'Ayv] 'A(ppoSirl)and
functions, and it is tempting to label her cult 'Hellenistic'. Anyway, K.'s
observation(pp. 218f.) that, in comparisonwith Greeks and Romans, orientals are overrepresentedamong pagan miracle-workers,amounts to neglect
of the effects of an agelong process of culturalinteraction-without altering the fact that these miracle-workerswere pagans.30In fact, by stressing
the oriental origins of a number of pagan miracle-workers,his argument
tends to reduce ratherthan to augment the distance between these figures
and the cradle of Christianity.Returningto Eunus, we should not overlook
the fact that our acquaintancewith this figure is extremely fortuitous. If he
had not become the leader of a slave revolt, itself the result of a series of
coincidences, we would never have heard of him. This confirms the inappropriatenessof the utilizationof argumentsfrom silence on the issue under
discussion.
In conclusion, I think we must consider K.'s attemptto eliminate pagan
miracle-workersfrom the environmentin which Christianityoriginated a
failure. However, this conclusion still leaves anotherquestion unanswered:
were these miracle-workersin some way regardedas divine beings?31A
link between miracle-workingand human divinity certainly was part of the
realm of thought of the Greek world in the Hellenistic period. Especially
relevant in this context are the traditionson Pythagoras' divinity, handed
down to the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods by Aristotle, among
others, and attested from the second century B.C. onwards.32A conception
of the miracle-workingdivine man was, therefore,availablein the Hellenistic
period and the first centuryA.D. But what about actual human beings who
enjoyed a reputation for miracle-workingand, on this basis, claimed or
were credited with divinity? Admittedly,our evidence for the first centuries
B.C. and A.D. is scarce.33 Again, however, the behaviour of pagans in
90
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
Acts is suggestive of a pattern. It seems far-fetched to suppose that only

Christianmissionaries were acclaimed as gods in human shape, when they
were believed to have miraculously healed a cripple or survived a viper's
bite.34
(D) The increase of our evidence from the second century A.D. onwards
can, as I suggested above, at least partly be explained by an increase in
the social and intellectual respectabilityof miracle-workersratherthan by
an increase in numbers. The revival of Pythagoreanismfrom the first century B.C. probably played a significant role in this upward mobility. The
Pythagoreantenet of a thirdontological categoryof intermediatebeings 'like
Pythagoras'between gods and humans35provideda perfectphilosophicallegitimationfor the activities of miracle-workers.To a considerableextent, the
proliferationof sources on miracle-workersin the second centuryA.D. may
reflect the success of this legitimation in philosophical terms, as part of a
transformationof intellectualideals and models, ratherthan 'eine allgemeine
Intensivierungdes Wunderglaubens'.36
The evidence does not allow us to determine with certainty at which
point in the Hellenistic period or early Empire miracle-workersstarted to
legitimate their claims by referringto the Pythagoreantradition. However,if
Bowie is rightin arguingin favourof 'provisionalacceptance'of Apollonius'
Pythagoreanism,37the Tyanean sage would be the first for whom such a
link is attested-which is not tantamountto the assumptionthat he was the
first Pythagoreanmiracle-worker.Pace K., the ubiquity of miracle-working
'divine men', whether Pythagoreans or not, remains a probability to be
reckoned with by studentsof the pagan environmentof earliest Christianity.
A 'Latter-dayCelsus' on Early Imperial Holy Men38
Wearyof the proliferationof studies on ancient conceptions of the divine
man, A. has made an attemptto get a grip on ancient realities. Acknowledging his indebtednessto the approachadopted by Peter Brown in his article
on holy men in late Antiquity (p. 31),39 but critical of Brown's distinction
between early Byzantine saints and the charismatic sages of an earlier period
(p. 205), he sets out to map the activities of early Imperialholy men, their
relations with pupils, clients, patrons and other associates, and the human
needs met by their accomplishments. A.'s intention to cast his net widely
is evident in his definition of the object of his investigations as 'anyone
who can reasonablybe called a "virtuosoreligious activist"' (p. 3), a label
The UbiquitousDivine Man
91
covering such diverging charactersas the uncouthJohn the Baptist and the
sophisticatedDio Chrysostom. Characteristicfeatures of A.'s approachinclude the strong relativizationof the importanceof the holy men's religious
loyalties (e.g., p. 9, 32 and 220) and an equally strong emphasis on the
continuity of their activities throughoutthe early Imperialperiod (p. 33).40
In the preface (p. x), the reader is warned to expect neither an exhaustive treatmentof the phenomenon nor a detailed discussion of all relevant
episodes from the evidence. Accordingly, liveliness is a more conspicuous
virtue of this book thandepth: the readeris takenby the hand, shown a great
number of colourful tableaus, and offered comments of varying quality by
his guide. A.'s remarksaboutthe function of holy men as 'religious middlemen' (pp. 10f.), for example, are instructive,as is the parallelthat he draws
between the spiritualand the materialworld in this respect. More specifically, A. could have referredto the phenomenonlabelled 'brokeragein the
distributionof beneficia' by RichardP. Saller.41Apollonius' activities in the
sanctuaryof Asclepius at Aegae (VA 1.8-12) can very well be described in
similar terms. There is a good observation(p. 131) on the problemsof holy
men with religious establishments,implicitly refuting Lane Fox's denial of
the existence of any tension between institutionalisedreligion and figures
such as Apollonius.42The case for takingthe documentaryvalue of incidents
depicted in fictional literatureseriously (p. 178) is well argued. Of course,
warningsagainstthe utilizationof argumentsfrom silence in discussing holy
men (e.g., p. 197) are very much to the point. I experiencedmore difficulties trying to follow A. in what he calls (p. 112) 'respectableguesswork' on
the actual proceedings behind alleged miracles (see, e.g., pp. 20-22). When
asked to understandthe blinding of Elymas by Paul (Acta Ap. 13.6-12) as
the result of an apostolic punch (p. 145f.), I find the designation of this interpretationas 'guesswork' more appropriatethan the additionof the epithet
'respectable'. Interpretationssuch as these become even more questionable
when they are combined with inaccurateparaphrasesof the evidence. A.'s
reproductionof Philostratus'story of an exorcism by Apollonius in Athens
(VA4.20) amountsto misrepresentation(p. 92). While Philostratustells that
the demon, as he left his victim, threw down a statue, A. attributesthis act
of iconoclasm to the patient: "As he is exorcised he throws down a statue."
Obviously, the tumbling down of the statue is meant to demonstratethe
demon's reality and the effectiveness of the exorcism: Philostratususes the
significant word TrxllpLov, 'visible sign', 'proof'. This point is apparently
lost on A., who in his Celsus-like preoccupationwith actual proceedings
92
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
tends to overlook the reason why attemptsto reconstructthe events behind

miracle stories are in many cases doomed to failure; too often the stories
anticipatesuch attempts.
Although A.'s choice of a 'flexible label' in defining the object of his
investigations is understandablegiven the exploratorynature of his study,
he sometimes casts his net too widely. Of course, he is perfectly right in
pointing out 'an often quite substantialarea of overlap' of the fields worked
by holy men and philosophers (p. 5). I could not help being surprised,
however, by the inclusion of Euphratesof Tyrus(p. 46 with 238 n. 99; 134f.)
and Dio of Prusa(p. 43) in the categoryof holy men. Dio's credentialsin this
respect boil down to the 'Zoroastrianmyth' purportedlytold to the Olbians
(p. 177; or 36.39-61); Euphrates'claim to holiness seems to rest on his
quarrelwith Apollonius-a flimsy basis for such a claim indeed. In addition
to recordingthe overlapbetween the activitiesof philosophersand holy men,
A. might have broughtout more clearly what was typical of their respective
roles.43Now part of his illustrationsof holy men's activities falls under the
suspicion of being atypical, especially as far as their appearancesas magistri
artis vitae and 'civic consultants' are concerned. Some conceptual clarity
might have wrought miracles.
An interesting aspect of A.'s approachis his willingness to use material
on holy men from other periods and civilizations-the Muslim Near East,
Elizabethan England, and modern Africa-to corroborateor complement
his findings on the operations of holy men in the Mediterraneanworld of
the early Imperial period and their social context (pp. 206-217). A more
systematic explorationof comparativematerialin orderto put new questions
to the ancient evidence might have repaid the effort. A promising field
of comparativeresearch was suggested eight years ago by Charles Robert
Phillips: 'the swarm of claimantsto the status of holy men in contemporary
India'.44 To the best of my knowledge, this suggestion has not yet been
followed up.
A.'s primaryconcern is with synchronicanalysis of the activities of holy
men in the firstthreecenturiesof the Christianera, and he only touches upon
the question of what period should be assigned to the rise of the miracleworking 'divine man' whom we meet in the early Empire (pp. llf.). This
problem holds an enduring fascination, and furtherdiscussion of it could
deepen understandingof the 'divine man's' importancein the early Empire.
The view that it was the Hellenistic period which witnessed the emergence
of the miracle-working'divine man' reaches back to RichardReitzenstein.
93
He explainedthe rise of the phenomenonprimarilyas a corollaryto the missionary propagandafor oriental cults.45Morton Smith, on the other hand,
listed several representativesof the 'spiritualunderworldof antiquity'from
the Classical period.46Besides, as the legends surroundingPythagorasare
'the oldest availablelayer of the tradition'on the Crotoniansage,47the emergence of the miracle-working'divine man' in the Hellenistic period should
be considereda reemergenceratherthanthe appearanceof a totally new phenomenon. Of course, the assumptionof a certaincontinuityin the activities
of religious charismaticsand miracle-workersis not incompatiblewith the
hypothesis thatthere was a significantincreasein theirimportanceduringthe
Hellenistic period. Attempts to explain such an increase might profit from
taking into account the characterizationof religious change in the GraecoRoman world during the period under discussion by John North as 'the
development of religious pluralism': the rise of a "new religious situation,
in which the individual had to make his or her own choices and in which,
as a result, the location of religious power became far more contentious."48
It seems a reasonableassumptionthat the developmentenvisaged by North
opened unprecedentedopportunitiesto figures who operated more or less
independentlyof the established cults, and who claimed a special relationship with the divine which was manifested in their alleged supernatural
powers.49The studies discussed in this contributiondemonstratethat such
figures remain a bone of contentionto modernscholarshipjust as they were
to contemporaries.50
Gibraltarstraat 611
JAAP-JANFLINTERMAN
NL-1055 NN Amsterdam
1 In additionto the studies Koskenniemi
andAndersonreviewedin this arby
ticle, the followingpublicationsarereferredto by author'snameonly: H.D. Betz,
in: RAC12 (1983),
Antikeu. Urchristentum)',
'Gottmensch
II (Griechisch-romische
234-312;L. Bieler,0EIOZANHP.Das Bilddes 'gittlichenMenschen'in Spdtantike
Theiosanerand the
ErsterBand.Wien1935;B. Blackburn,
undFriihchristentum.
Markanmiracletraditions.A critiqueof thetheiosanerconceptas an interpretative
Untersuchunof themiracletraditionsusedbyMark.Wissenschaftliche
background
E.L.
Reihe
40.
2.
Testament.
zum
Neuen
1991;
Bowie,
'Apollonius
Tibingen
gen
of Tyana;traditionandreality',in: ANRW2.16.2 (1978), 1652-1699;K.R.Bradley,
1989; W. BurSlaveryand rebellionin the Romanworld. Bloomington/London
Massachusetts
1972;
kert,Loreand sciencein ancientPythagoreanism.
Cambridge,
The 'divineman'. His originandfunctionin Hellenisticpopular
G.P.Corrington,
94
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
religion. American University Studies. Series VII, Theology and religion 17. New
am Main 1986; M. Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyanain legend and
York/Bern/Frankfurt
history. Roma 1986; R. Goulet, 'Les vies de philosophes dans l'antiquit6 tardive
et leur portee mysterique', in: Les actes apocryphes des apotres. Christianismeet
monde paien. Publicationsde la Faculte de Theologie de l'Universit6 de Geneve 4.
Geneve 1981, 161-208; J. Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellschaft. Selbstverstindnis, offentlichesAuftretenund populire Erwartungenin der hohen Kaiserzeit.
Heidelberger althistorischeBeitrage und epigraphische Studien 7. Stuttgart 1989;
M. Honig, 'Dea Syria-Atargatis', in: ANRW2.17.2 (1984), 1536-1581; R. Lane
Fox, Pagans and Christians in the Mediterraneanworld from the second century
A.D. to the conversion of Constantine. Harmondsworth1986; R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Mysterienreligionennach ihren Grundgedankenund Wirkungen.Leipzig
19273; M. Smith, 'Prolegomena to a discussion of aretologies, divine men, the
Gospels and Jesus', JBL 90 (1971), 174-199; J. Vogt, Ancient slavery and the ideal
of man. Cambridge, Massachusetts 1975. A previous publication on Philostratus'
Life of Apollonius by E. Koskenniemi (Der philostrateische Apollonios. Societas
ScientiarumFennica, CommentationesHumanarumLitterarum94. Helsinki 1991)
is referredto as: Koskenniemi,Der philostrateischeApollonios.
2 Lane Fox, 686 n. 34.
3 Smith, 179-181; the quotationis from p. 179.
4 Smith, 187.
5 Smith, 181-188; cf. W. Speyer, 'Der numinose Mensch als Wundertater',Kairos
NF 26 (1984), 129-153, at 143: "Bei kaum einem anderenMenschentyposdurftees
eine so breit gefacherte Skala qualitativerUnterschiedegeben wie bei diesem [i.e.,
bei dem numinosen Menschen]."
6 Betz, 234-288 deals with divine men from the Graeco-Romanworld.
7 Betz, 235. In fact, the result
produced by Betz's approachis very close to
Bieler's 'Gesamttypus(...) des antiken Gottmenschen',on which see Bieler, 4; cf.
Koskenniemi, 73. In view of the conceptual vagueness of Bieler's Gesamttypus,I
feel that a definition that could be of use in historical discourse, should concentrate
on persons with a reputationfor miracle-workingand/or prophetic gifts. For an
attemptin this direction see below, at n. 49.
8 E.V. Gallagher,Divine man or magician? Celsus and Origen on Jesus. Society
of biblical literaturedissertationseries 64. Chico 1982, 174-178.
9 For examples see Koskenniemi, 78-80 (D. Georgi), 82-84 and 147-150
(M. Smith), 86-88 (G. TheiBen),95-98 (G.P. Corrington).
10 Bieler, 7-9
('Die Quellen').
11 See Koskenniemi,76, 78 and 160 for
examples. Obviously,the same is true of
Philostratus'
to
attempts present
Apollonius as a typical specimen of Bieler's 'divine
D.
man', see, e.g.,
Esser, FormgeschichtlicheStudien zur hellenistischen und zur
95
frihchristlichen Literaturunter besondererBeriicksichtigungder vita Apollonii des

Philostrat und der Evangelien. Bonn 1969, 91-98; Goulet, 178f.
12 Koskenniemi, 207 defines the persons to be looked for as 'menschliche heidnische Wundertater,d.h. Menschen, denen in der Antike nicht rational erklarbare,
ubermenschlicheFahigkeitenzugeschriebenwurden'.
13 Koskenniemi, 84 rightly criticized the covering-upof the problem by phrases
such as this one, used by Smith, 186.
14 E. Koskenniemi,Der
philostrateischeApollonios.
15 Koskenniemi, 189
(correctingan obvious printer'serror);cf. 206: "Aus dem,
was im Abschnitt3.1. dargelegtwordenist, mu3 jedoch der SchluBgezogen werden,
daB der philostrateischeApollonios nicht dem ersten, sondern dem 3. Jahrhundert
angeh6rt."
16 E. Meyer, 'Apollonios von Tyana und die Biographie des Philostratos',Hermes 52 (1917), 371-424; Bowie, 1653-1671.
17 Koskenniemi, 173f.; cf. Koskenniemi,Der
philostrateischeApollonios, 9-15.
The 'Damis' issue remains controversial. For other opinions than Meyer's and
Bowie's, see J. Mesk, 'Die Damisquelle des Philostratos in der Biographie des
Apollonios', WS 41 (1919), 121-138; W. Speyer, 'Zum Bild des Apollonios von
Tyana bei Heiden und Christen', JbAC 17 (1974), 47-63, esp. 48-53; G. Anderson,
Philostratus. Biography and belles lettres in the third century A.D. London/New
York/Sydney 1986, 155-173; and my Politiek, paideia & pythagorisme. Griekse
identiteit, voorstellingen rond de verhouding tussenfilosofen en alleenheersers en
politieke ideein in de Vita Apollonii van Philostratus. Groningen 1993, 87-97 (an
English translationof this study will be published in 1995 by J.C. Gieben, Amsterdam).
18 Koskenniemi, 178; cf. Koskenniemi,Der
philostrateischeApollonios, 18.
19On Moeragenessee Bowie, 1673f.; D.H. Raynor,'Moeragenesand Philostratus
two views of Apollonius of Tyana', CQ 34 (1984), 222-226, also dealing with Epp.
Apoll. 16 and 17.
20 On Maximus of Aegae see F. Graf, 'Maximos von Aigai. Beitrag zur Uberlieferung von Apollonios von Tyana', JbAC 27/8 (1984/5), 65-73.
21 For local traditionssee Bowie, 1686-1688; Dzielska, 51-84. Local tradition
in Ephesus: VA4.3, 4.10 and 8.26; Porph., Abst. 3.3.6; Lact., Inst. 5.3, and D.C.
67.18.1f., with Bowie, 1687.
22 Bowie, 1686f.
23 Dzielska, 15f., 29f., 96 and 185 (method); 83 (magician).
24 For a list see F.H. Cramer,
Astrology in Roman law and politics. Philadelphia
1954, 234.
25
Curiously, K. (p. 83) calls the explanation of the scarcity of our evidence
on 'divine men' before the Antonine period from 'the snobbishness of the literary
96
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
traditionof antiquity' by Smith, 179 an argumentume silentio. Obviously, Smith's

argumentis exactly the opposite.
26 On the growth of 'superstition'in the period from the second to the fourth
century A.D., to be conceived as a blurringof the contrastbetween elite and masses
ratherthan as the rise of a new phenomenon, see R. MacMullen, Paganism in the
Roman Empire. New Haven/London 19822, 70-73. On the ratherdepressing state
of preservationof pagan (as opposed to Jewish) prose literaturefrom the Hellenistic
and Julio-Claudianperiods see A. Dihle, Die griechische und lateinische Literatur
der Kaiserzeit. Miinchen 1989, 70 and 153.
27 For Eunus as a miracle-worker,see esp. D.S. 34/5.2.5-9, with Vogt, 65f. and
Bradley, 55-57. On Posidonius as Diodorus' source for the Sicilian slave wars see
Bradley, 133-136.
28 See FR. Walton, 'Atargatis',in: RAC 1 (1950), 854-860; M. Honig, 1565-1571
('Griechische Welt'). On the 'naturalizationof alien cults in Greek cities'cf. A.D.
Nock, Conversion. The old and the new is religionfrom Alexander to Augustine of
Hippo. Oxford 1933, 54-61, especially referringto the cult of Atargatisat 59f.
29 See
Vogt, 65; cf. Honig, 1565f.
30 I doubt if, in the case of (the fatherof) the
theurgistJulian, the epithet 'Chaldaean' has an ethnic meaning, as K. (p. 218) thinks, cf. LSJ s.v. XctXacito II. Julian's
writings are not 'restlos verloren gegangen' (p. 215), see E.R. Dodds, The Greeks
and the irrational. Satherclassical lectures 25. Berkeley/LosAngeles/London 1951,
284f.
31 It is the merit of Blackburn, 13-96, esp. 13f. with n. 6 to have focussed on
'divinemen (...) to whom miracleswere ascribed'(my italics) ratherthanon miracleworkers 'for whom (...) express attributionsof divinity do not exist'. Blackburn's
chapter on miracle-working'divine men' far outranksK.'s treatment,and in what
follows I am heavily indebted to his excellent discussion.
32 See Burkert, 136-147, esp. 141-144; cf. Blackburn,37-51, esp. 38-40. K.'s
discussion (pp. 226-228) of relatedproblemsis particularlyinadequate;see, e.g., the
dating of the paradoxographerApollonius in the second century A.D. (p. 227).
33 Note that at the dawn of the Hellenistic era a
person claiming divinity on
the basis of his healing powers is attested: the Syracusanphysician Menecrates,see
O. Weinreich,Menekrates,Zeus und Salmoneus. ReligionsgeschichtlicheStudienzur
Psychopathologie des Gottmenschentumsin Antike und Neuzeit. Tubinger Beitrage
zur Altertumswissenschaft18. Stuttgart1933, esp. 1-27 and 91-102.
34Acta Ap. 14.8-18 and 28.3-6, with Lane Fox, 99f.; cf. Corrington,201f. Admittedly, the citizens of Lystraand the inhabitantsof Maltathinkthatthey witness divine
epiphanies ratherthan the appearanceof 0eoti &avpeS;cf. H.S. Versnel, 'What did
ancient man see when he saw a god? Some reflectionson Greco-Romanepiphany',
in: D. van der Plas (ed.), Effigies Dei. Essays on the history of religions. Studies
in the history of religions (Supplements to Numen) 51. Leiden etc. 1987, 42-55,
97
referringto Acta Ap. 14.8-18 at 46. Nevertheless,these passages are relevantto the
issue under discussion in that they reveal the reaction of pagan audiences to miracles worked by persons unknown to them. It seems a reasonablehypothesis that, if
confronted with miraculous feats performedby persons with whom they were acquaintedor whose origins were known to them, such audienceswould have classified
the miracle-workersas human beings whose miraculouspowers showed them to be
in possession of a special, personal relationshipwith divinity, i.e., as 'divine men'.
35 See
(ou
Arist., fr. 192 Rose (= Iamb., VP 31): rxo XOYLxou
TO iEv eorL
OEO6,
T s avOp&n7og,
-r 85 olov IluOcao6pc.Cf. Burkert,144.
36 On these developmentssee Goulet, 167-176; Hahn, 192-201.
37 Bowie, 1692, concluding a characteristicallyrigorous assessment of the evidence.
38 For A.'s characterizationof his own attitude by comparison with Lucian's
friend, the author of an Against magicians (xacr&a-yov), see pp. x and 220; cf.
Lucian, Alex. 21.
39 P. Brown, 'The rise and function of
holy men in late Antiquity',JRS 61 (1971),
80-101.
40 Cf. p. 247 n. 31, where A. criticizes H.C. Kee (Medicine, miracle and magic
in New Testamenttimes. Society for New Testamentstudies, monographseries 55.
Cambridge 1986, 78) for postulating 'basic shifts in the worldviews prevalentfrom
the first part of the first century A.D. down into the second and third centuries',
and brandsKee's use of Philostratusas 'particularlyquestionable'. Note the strong
affinity of K.'s criticism of the 'Oeogcavip hypothesis' to that of Kee.
41 R.P. Saller, Personal
patronage under the early Empire. Cambridge 1982,
74-78.
42 See Lane Fox, 253.
43 On the role of
philosophersin early Imperialsociety see Hahn,passim.
44 C.R. Phillips, 'The sociology of religious knowledge in the Roman Empire to
A.D. 284', in: ANRW2.16.3 (1986), 2677-2773, at 2759 with n. 266.
45 Reitzenstein,25-27. More
recently,the missionaryfunctionof miracle-working
'divine man' has been emphasized by Corrington,esp. 159-209. J.Z. Smith, Map is
not territory. Studies in the history of religions. Leiden 1978, 187 also assigns the
rise of the 'divine man' to the Hellenistic period.
46 Smith, 179-181. See also R. Garland,'Priests and power in Classical Athens',
in: M. Beard/J.North (eds), Paganpriests. Religion and power in the ancient world.
London 1990, 73-91, dealing at 82-85 with chresmologoiand manteis in the Archaic
and Classical periods and affirming at 83 that at least some of these seers relied
on inspiration. For an interesting early fourth-centurycase, usually overlooked in
scholarly literatureon the 0Eiog avijp, see Plu., Lys. 26.1: 'Apollo's son' Silenus,
from Pontus, an (ultimately ineffective) instrumentin Lysander's alleged scheme
98
Jaap-Jan Flinterman
to abolish the exclusive claim of the Agiads and the Eurypontidsto the Spartan
throne. Plutarch(Lys. 25.5) claims to follow the account of a man who was both a
historianand a philosopher,probablyTheophrastus,see J. Smits, Plutarchus'Leven
van Lysander.Amsterdam1939, 11 and 232.
47 Burkert, 137.
48 J. North, 'The developmentof religious pluralism',in: J. Lieu/J.North/T.Rajak
(eds), The Jews among pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire. London/New
York 1992, 174-193; the quotationis from p. 187.
49 I offer this characterizationas a working definition of the miracle-working
'divine man'. It marks a returnfrom Bieler's Gesamttypusto Reitzenstein's position, see Reitzenstein, 26: "... ein solcher Gottmensch [verbindet]auf Grundeiner
hoheren Natur und personlicher Heiligkeit in sich tiefstes Erkennen, Seher- und
Wunderkraft."
50 Thanks are due to Dr E. Koskenniemi, who kindly answered a previous formulation of my objections to his position by letter. Although he did not dispel my
doubts. I appreciate his willingness to discuss differences of opinion. I am also
indebtedto the anonymousreaderof Numen and to ProfessorJ. den Boeft for helpful comments on an earlier version of this contribution,and to my former students
Jona Lendering and Eva Dutilh, who in 1990 participatedin a seminar devoted to
the Greek world of the early Empire and produceda paper on Apollonius of Tyana
and Alexander of Abonouteichos.
Conference
A REPORTON THE XVIITHINTERNATIONALCONGRESSFOR THE
HISTORYOF RELIGIONS
SYLVIAMARCOS
The InternationalCongress on the History of Religions took place, for

the first time in its history, in a Latin American country. Mexico was the
selected site for the XVIIth meeting. The dynamic of social and political
change which this countryis presentlyundergoinginfluencedboth the form
and the content of the Congress; the general theme was "religion and society." Significantly,on some of the days of the Congresswe heardbehindthe
walls the voices of social unrest chanting their protests. Religionists congregated there learned and recognized the interconnectionbetween religion
and politics.
Traditionally,the congresses of the InternationalAssociation for the History of Religions (IAHR) are organized in sections representing specific
areas of the study of religions and serving also as main headings of the
program. The IAHR's past emphasis on historical and philological methods for the study of religions is reflected in such area sections. During the
preparationof this XVIIth Congress the focus was broadenedto include the
interactions and the internal dynamics of religious systems with changing
social and culturalcontexts.
In his inauguraladdress, Michael Pye, SecretaryGeneral of the IAHR,
stressed that
...theway religionis studiedin variousregionsof the worldis ratherdifferent.
The LatinAmericancontextis veryspecialbecauseof its uniquehistoryof the
SpanishConquestandthe mixingof socialgroupseversince.
Mexico, he claimed, was an ideal site for the Congress, on the one hand
because of the Catholic Church'srole in political conflicts, and on the other
hand because of the recent emergence of new religious influences, such as
Protestantgroups. He saw our contemporaryreligious reality as the perfect
backgroundfor a congress that focuses on the interactionsbetween religion
and society.
NUMEN,Vol.43
100
Sylvia Marcos
Elio Masferrer,Executive Secretary of the Congress, stressed that the

conference would take a more humanisticratherthan theological approach
to the subject of religion and its role in society.
The week-long conferencetook place in the Claustrode Sor JuanaInes de
la Cruz. A beautifulXVIIthCenturyconventof the orderof Jeronimasnuns,
where the celebrated Mexican poet and literary luminary of that century
wrote some of her more celebrated prose. An intense intellectual and a
woman of special physical beauty,she chose to retire to a convent to enjoy
the time and recollection needed for her work. The atmosphereof those
cloisters continued in the present to offer a suitable context for the more
than 800 presentationsdivided among some 100 symposia.
It is impossible to renderan exhaustivereview of an event of such magnitude. I will simply highlight broadly some themes and events that were
amenable to my personal involvement or participation.
Thematically,the symposia clustered mainly aroundcertain pressing issues in the study of religions and their socio-political impact. Some of
these clusters were: the grip, on contemporarysocieties, of the process of
constructionof new religions; the study of recent forms of fundamentalism
and their political implications; the shaping force of gender on religions;
theoretical perspectives for the study of religions; the interrelationshipbetween medicine, shamanism, and religions; syncretism reconsideredin its
conceptualizationand its applicationto concrete cases.
As in previous congresses, some presentationswere grouped both by
regions of the world and by the specific religious systems under scrutiny.
Religious state and society in Africa, chaired by J. Olupona and A. Tayob,
was an example.
The following is an excerpt from the symposia's list:
New Religious Movements, chaired by Elio Masferrerand Lourdes
Baez;
Ethnic-ReligiousMovements,chaired by Jorge HernandezDiaz;
CharismaticGroups, chaired by Eva Pizano;
History of Settlementand the Impactof Conversionon Protestantism
in the Third World,chaired by ArtemiaFabre.
These particularsymposia focused specially on the contemporaryreligious
scene with its multiple manifestationsof new religious configurationsthat
exemplify the varied, contradictory,and sometimes incomprehensibleways
in which urbanand ruralpopulationsintegratedifferentreligious influences.
A Report on the XVllth International Congress
101
The symposium on Recent Researchon Fundamentalism,chairedby Peter

Antes and Hans Kippenbergdealt with the amazingrecent careerof religions
thatchallenges the focus of the academicstudy of religion directedon private
religious experience. The symposium on Religion and Intolerance, chaired
by GilbertoGimenez and Yolotl Gonzalez, addressedthe growingintolerance
among believersof differentreligious systems; they also gave some examples
of religious tolerance. In his plenary address, Ashis Nandy insisted on the
pressing questions of growing religious intolerance in India. He exposed
the political manipulationsof beliefs which foster enmity where religious
tolerancehad previouslyprevailed. He gave poignantexamplesof the misuse
of religion by ill-meaning politicians. Fundamentalismwas also revised
conceptuallyand by employing case studies-specifically those thatemerged
during the 1990's. Is tolerance to diversity possible in a closed system of
belief?
The shaping force of gender was analyzed in a series of eight symposia.
In the previous Congress, held in Rome in 1990, Ursula King had organized
the Gender and Religions section. In those sections much of relevance for
thought and study had emerged. In Mexico, this section was coordinated
by Rosalind Hackett and Sylvia Marcos. A new perspective on the study
of gender was a focus on corporeality,on the body and religion. Different
religious perspectives on the body emerged. Naomi Seidman spoke of the
Jewish body; Fe Mangahas,Milagros Guerreroand ConsolacionAlaras analyzed corporealityamong nativepopulationsof the PhilippineIslandsbefore
the arrivalof the Spaniards,during the colonial period and among contemporarygrassrootspeople. JanetChawladescribedHindu beliefs on women's
life cycle and corporealevents like menarcheand menopause. TonyBattaglia
traced corporealityin Catholicismback to the presence of corporealimages
of saints and virgins in Catholic churches. Miriam Levering spoke of the
Buddhist need to transcend gender-sex differences. Carol Ladermananalyzed the sex-gender divide in the perceptionof a Malay medicine woman.
Mesoamericanbodily constructionswere discussed by Sylvia Marcos.
In the symposium on Theory in Gender and Religion, Nancy Falk presented the efforts of scholars in the study of Hindu religion to demystify
the Hindu past. Rita Gross questioned the Pre-PatriarchalHypothesis, and
Catherine Machale described Lakota and Huroni linguistic and religious
epistemologies. Rosalind Hackettproposeda study of African art as "text",
and MirandaShaw criticized the colonialist discourse prevailingin studies
of tantric texts where women do not seem to be as relevant as her own
102
Sylvia Marcos
new translationsseem to prove. Other symposia themes were Womenand

Religious Innovations, chaired by Rosalind Hackett and Helena Helve, and
FeminineSpirituality,chaired by JordanPaper. The creativenessand intensity of women's contributionsto religions were analyzed cross-culturally.
Among the participantswere Terhi Utriainen and Tuula Sakaranaho,both
Finnish scholars who sharedthe discussions with Native American, Hindu,
Puerto Rican, German,Chinese, Canadianand American scholars.
Among those who focused on theory and method in the study of religion,
E. Thomas Lawson and Donald Wiebe coordinated a series of symposia
on matters of theory and method in the study of religion in the social and
cognitive sciences. Lawson, Robert McCauley and BirgittaMark presented
theories employing the insights of the cognitive sciences for the study of
religious systems. Armin Geertz chaired Global Perspectives on Methodology for the Study of Religions. Some of the presentationstried to ask if
religious studies constitute a hermeneuticalor an explanatorytask. Others
dealt with the problemof ethnocentricismin the definitionof religion and of
methods and theories capable of counterbalancingit through cross-cultural
prototypes.
These lively, well-attendeddiscussions tried to unravel,if possible, a definition of religion and the relationbetween definitionand theory. The Notion
of Person or its Equivalentsin DifferentReligious Systemswas anothersymposium with Latin American theoreticiansthat approachedreligious theory
from a differentperspective.
Syncretism has long enjoyed a sustained analysis. It is constantly reconceptualized. In the Congress, there were several symposia which dealt
specifically with the topic. Syncretismamong Latinos in the USA,chairedby
Anthony Stevens-Arroyo;Religious Syncretismin South East Asia: a Historical Appraisal, chaired by Amarjiva Lochan; and Afroamerican Cults,
chaired by Laura Rita Segato, were among those that most persistently
touched upon syncretism. In many of the presentationsthere was an attempt at redefinition,in yet anotherthe issues appearedmore a description
of how a new synthesis emerges. Yet other discussions claimed that synthesis and syncretism are not synonymous;its processual characterseemed
to be generally accepted, but semiotic theoreticianssignaled the need for
further and deeper studies of cultural codes that could solve the apparent
cul-de-sac in which the definitionsof syncretismseem to be presentlystuck.
Syncretismwas also an issue in the theory and method section organizedby
A Report on the XVllth International Congress
103
Lawson and Wiebe and importantpapers were presentedby TimothyLight,

Michael Pye and LutherMartin.
The influences of ethnic variables in the belief and practice of several
urbanpopulationsin Mexico was analyzed by the presidentof the congress,
Yolotl Gonzalez, in her plenaryaddress. The religious movementof la Mexicanidad is an answerto the pressingsocial and political conditionsin today's
Mexico. It provides a basis for pride in our indigenous identities. However,
these "indigenous"roots get reinterpretedand sometimes reinvented,in an
attempt to develop counter-traditionsof our own. The complex interaction
between past and present served as her basis for differentiatingamong the
more relevant groups of La Mexicanidad. They are more or less related
to ancient indigenous roots in their beliefs and rituals, but, Dr. Gonzalez
claimed, the ceremonialdancing groups calling themselves "concheros,"for
example, are truly anchoredin those traditions. Others merely read the old
chronicles and primarysources on Prehispanicreligions and interpretthem
within a contemporarycontext heavily laden with new values. Among these,
groups like the "Reginos"claim for themselves the name "La nueva Mexicanidad." This latter movement has created an assemblage out of diverse
religious influences, combining astrology, some elements of the Buddhist,
Hindu and Hermetic traditions,seasoned with some ecological concerns.
The same indigenous focus in the analysis was present in Indoamerican
Theology, and MesoamericanTheogony and Liturgy,symposia coordinated
by Eleazar Lopez, MarinellaMiano and Marie Odile Marion.
In the final general assembly the majority of members decided not to
change the name of the Association. We will continue calling ourselves the
InternationalAssociationfor the History of Religions. Will the futurereveal
a better name to circumscribeour interests and research endeavors? That
remains to be seen.
Centro de Investigaciones Psicoetnologicas
Apdo. postal 698

62000 CuernavacaMorelos, Mexico
SYLVIAMARCOS
BOOK REVIEWS
PASCALBOYER(Ed.), Cognitive Aspects of Religious Symbolism-Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993, IX + 246 p., ISBN 0-52143288-X (hb.), ?27.95.
The cognitive study of religious symbolism aims to develop a naturalist
psychology of religion by applying developmentsin the cognitive sciences,
and more in particularin cognitive psychology and anthropology-which
study how humans learn the concepts they need in daily social life, and
acquire proficiency in their use-to the study of how religious concepts
are transmitted,learned, and properlyused; and vice versa to contributeto
the development of the young cognitive sciences by the study of religious
symbols as a special domain unconstrainedby practical constraints (43).
Cognitive anthropologyof religion aims to 'explain the recurrentproperties
of religious symbolism' by studying the rules preprogrammedin our minds
which constrainthe transmission,acquisition,and proficientuse in daily life
of the mental representationsand processes involved in religious beliefs,
discourse and behaviour(4).
The volume has four parts. The first has two papers which place this
approach in the wider frameworkof anthropology: one by Boyer on the
special marks of the cognitive approachto religious symbolism compared
to earlier approacheswhich did not take the universalconstraintsupon human cognition into account (4-47); and one by Scott Atran on the defective
contributionof earlier 'ethnosemantics',the study of category formationin
traditional societies, and how to improve upon it (48-70). Part two, on
religious categories being structuredby tacit assumptions which constrain
the range of inferences and conjectures which believers can make about
religious entities and processes (73), has four papers: one by J.D. Keller
and FK. Lehman on the complexity, because of embedded meanings and
polysemy, of two ideas central to the cosmology of islanders of West Futuna, Vanuatu (74-92); one by Roger Keesing on the evocative power of
focal metaphors, such as 'earth' and 'path', in Kwaio culture on Malaita,
NUMEN,Vol.43
Book reviews
105
Solomon Islands (93-110); one by MauriceBloch, who explores the intuitive

connections made by a Malagasy society between trees, wood, houses, and
humans, and their dealing with the first three as metaphoricalsubstitutesfor
the latter after rules, postulated as specific by Atran for concept formation
about living beings (111-120); and one by Boyer who analyses 'the role
of implicit ontological hypotheses' (125) restrictingthe range of predicates
that can be applied to a specific cognitive domain, in the praxis of cultural categories in a numberof traditionalsocieties; which role corresponds
to 'the surprisinglyfinegradedontological distinctions' (127) between several cognitive domains which cognitive psychology has shown children in
Western societies to use intuitively even at an early age. As these distinctions 'are transmittedwithout being taught' (139) in both settings, Boyer
suggests that they must be explained by a faculty for 'intuitive heuristics'
(140) in man which automaticallytriggers the application of certain distinctions to certain domains (121-141). The third part is on how beliefs
are acquired and fixed; it has two contributions. In the first (147-164),
ChristinaToren challenges the assumptionthat 'the symbolic' is a separate
domain located in ritual, unconstrainedby everyday knowledge. She argues on the basis of her ethnographicwork with school children on Gau,
in central Fiji, that it becomes such by a process of progressive cognitive development in the children when they graduallylearn to discern the
symbolic meaning intended in a certain behaviour. If Toren deals with a
well-structuredritual, the symbolic meaning of which children gradually
discover, Carlo Severi in the second article (165-181) deals with the dark
language and behaviourof the shamansamong the CunaIndiansof Panama,
from which the participantsin theirritualsonly graduallyconstruct,by analogy with non-ritualsituations, vague, and by the variety which vagueness
allows, complex and highly personal, representationsof the invisible entities, which can be sensed but not seen, and which are believed to be
actively involved in their situation. He contends that these very loose notions are produced performativelyin the pragmatics of the ritual and often have no existence elsewhere (166). The fourth and final part also has
two contributions,by Thomas Lawson (188-206) and Michael Houseman
(207-224), on the intrinsic propertiesand structureof ritual action. Lawson uses the Chomskyan notion of competence for a general account of
the structureof ritual produced by the participants'intuitions about when
a ritual is 'well-formed', and when it is not. Central to his argumentis
106
Book reviews
the distinction between the syntax of ritual action and the semantics of
religious representations. The intuitions of the participantsabout the first
enable them to use the latter in appropriateways in actual rituals. Houseman, in his contributionon the 'secret' initiation rite for boys among the
Beti in Cameroon, argues that rites are not only syntactically constrained,
but to some degree also semantically by the formal propertiesof religious
interaction.
This well-orderedand well-producedbook is a credit to the growing literatureon the cognitive approachto the study of symbol, ritualand religion
which has emerged in the last decade. The paradigmbeing so young, its
adherentsare highly ambitious: the hypotheses formulatedchallenge many
received points of view. Though they often seem to explain certainempirical data betterthan previous theories, yet, so far the enterprisehas remained
rather speculative. Even so, this collection of papers is, in my view, of
prime importanceto all scholars of symbols, rituals, and religions with an
interest in theory development for the purpose of the constructionof more
adequate instrumentsof research for these three highly importantfields of
culturalresearch.
University of Leiden
Dept. for the Study of Religion
Matthias de Vrieshof 1
NL-2300 RA Leiden
J.G. PLATVOET
H. CONSERJr. (Eds), Experience of the

SUMNERB. TWISSand WALTER
in
the
Sacred: Readings
Phenomenology of Religion-Hanover NH,
London: Brown University Press/University Press of New England,
1992, X + 294 p., ISBN 0-87451-530-0 (pb).
Despite its title, and 'readings' from Otto, Kristensen,Kitagawa,Eliade,
and Hultkrantz,this edited collection of excerpts is a source book in philosophical Phenomenologyin the traditionof Scheler and Ricoeur ratherthan
a Phenomenology of Religion in the tradition of van der Leeuw. Twiss
and Conser subsume the latter more historical traditioninto a more speculative and more properly Husserlian phenomenology. The readings are
groupedin three sections. The first is on 'numinous',mystical, and feminist
NUMEN,Vol.43
Book reviews
107
religious experience, which Twiss and Conser term 'essential phenomenology'. It has excerpts from Otto on the experience of the numinous(77-85),
Scheler on the divine being revealed in 'naturalreligious' acts as absolute and holy (86-96), Earle on a phenomenology of mysticism (97-112),
the Zen teacher Sekida on samadhi in Husserlian and Heideggerianterms
(112-120), Carol Christ on the spiritualquest of women from nothingness
to awakening, insight, and new naming (120-128), and Dupre on his thesis that 'autonomousreflection', divorcedfrom religious experience, cannot
do justice to religion (129-142). In the second section, five readings are
grouped on 'the social and symbolic forms of the sacred', as studied by
what Twiss and Conser term 'the historical-typologicalPhenomenology of
Religion'. It has excerpts from C.J. Arthur on Phenomenology and religion in Golding's novels about the Neanderthalers(145-166), Kristensen
on prayer(167-176), Kitagawaon three types of pilgrimage in Japan(177187), Eliade on the world, the city, and the house (188-199), and Hultkrantz
on the cult of the dead among North American Indians (200-220). The
third section is a collection of readings on 'levels of meaning in the religious life-world' as discussed in 'existential hermeneutics'. They are by
Ricoeur on guilt and ethics, J.E. Smith on the experience of the holy and
the idea of God (238-248), M. Westphalon again guilt (248-264), Caroline
Bynum on the polysemic nature of religious symbols (265-273), and Paul
Pruyser on the dynamics of hope (273-289). The three sections are preceded by a long introduction(1-74) in which Twiss and Conser introduce
these three successive types of phenomenologyof religion, the essential, the
historical-typological,and the existential-hermeneutical,as the three 'separate but related voices' (1-2) which togetherconstitute the choir of modern
phenomenology of religion.
The phenomenologyadvocatedin this book is the existential-hermeneutical one. It is a non-factual,personal,holistic (160), imaginaryre-experiencing (163) of one's own or any other believer's experiences of the Transcendent. It espouses a meta-testable inclusive religious ontology and is
thoroughly religionist. Twiss and Conser consider their amalgam 'one of
the most importantmethods for the study of religions developed in the last
century', a claim which a good many scholars of religions will not endorse,
however much they will respect this theology, in the manner in which religions are to be respected. This book seems to be of interest mainly for
Book reviews
108
scholars of liberal Christianpersuasionin Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology.

University of Leiden
Dept. for the Study of Religion
Matthiasde Vrieshof 1
NL-2300 RA Leiden
J.G. PLATVOET
EARLY GREEK SANCTUARIES

and ROBINHAGG(Eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New
NANNOMARINATOS
Approaches-London, New York: Routledge, 1993, XII + 245 p., ISBN
0-415-05384 (cloth), ?35.00.
Le sanctuaire grec. Entretienspreparespar ALBERTSCHACHTER
(Fondation
Hardt: Entretiens sur l'antiquite classique, 37)-Geneve, 1992, X +
367 p.
MARCELPIIRART(Ed.), Polydipsion Argos. Argos de la fin des palais
myceniens a la constitutionde l'Etat classique (Bulletin de Correspondence Hellenique, Supplement22)-Athens, Fribourg: Ecole Francaise
d'Athens, 1992, XII + 324 p., ISBN 2-86958-041-X.
These recently published volumes on Greek sanctuariesare worth the attention of the historianof religions. They reveal a new approach,different
from most of the earlierbooks about Greek temples: not the isolated temple
or altar, not the aesthetic of architectureor morphologicalcomparison,but
sanctuariesas a whole in context with settlements, their function for cultic
activities and socially differentiatedgroups.
An Entretienbetween Classical Archaeologistsand Philologists is first an
encounter of different sources about the same subject. There are enormous
differences between the writtensources on one hand, and the reconstruction
of the excavatedstones, vessels or votives on the other. WalterBurkert:concordia discors: The literary and archaeologicalevidence on the sanctuary
of Samothrace(in Marinatos& Hagg [M&H] 178-191) shows, how literary
sources on Greek religion are interestedin exciting stories, in sex and crime,
in ranking lists, which sanctuariesis the oldest, who introducedmysteries
NUMEN, Vol. 43
Book reviews
109
for the first time, and so on. Excavatorson the other hand (as positivists)
use only the isolated bits of informationin the literarysource, they are not
interested in context and intention, why one author ascribes an absurdity
to, say, Samothraceand her mysteries. Another problem of sources can be
seen, whenever an excavatorhas to determinethe function of a building or
its interior without the help of a guide like that of Pausaniasfor mainland
Greece, as BirgittaBergquist: The Archaic Temenosin WesternGreece (in:
Le sanctuairegrec [LSG] 109-152) deplores.
The second encounteris that of methods. According to RichardTomlinson: Perachora(LSG 321-346) the sanctuaryof Hera Akraia in the town of
Corinthis founded as a counterpartto the sanctuaryof Hera Akraia on the
other shore of the gulf. The epithet cannot be derived from locality. But
T. does not understandthe question of Fritz Graf, wether not only the name
but also the ritual (intiationof boys) has been transferred(p. 347 sq.). In all
contributionsthere are examples of a new understandingfor the secondary
buildings of the sanctuaries.The sanctuarieswere not only places for offerings to the god, but also places for feasts, meetings, sports, dancing, theatre,
and concerts. Ulrich Sinn adds anotherfunction (not valid for every sanctuary): Greek sanctuariesas places of refuge (M&H 88-109). But it is not
satisfactoryjust to see in the sanctuariescombinationsof sacred and secular
purposes, of votives and utensils, of installationsfor gods vs. installations
for men (Tomlinson, e.g. 346). That does not meet the Greek distinctions,
rightly shown by Graf and Schachter(LSG 350 sq.). The case of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinthwith a series of banquet-rooms,a little
theatre,but no temple, no altar,is revealing: Nancy Bookidis: Ritual dining
at Corinth (M&H 45-61). Folkert van Straten gives a continuationof his
comprehensivestudies on votives: Votives and votariesin Greek sanctuaries
(LSG 247-284); Roland Etienne exposes a typology on altars: Autels et
sacrifices (LSG 291-312). Briefly, this seems to me the first achievementin
currentscholarshipon Greek sanctuaries:The myopic view on temple and
altar has been widend to the sanctuaryas a whole. It has many functions;
our distinction between sacred and profanedoes not work.
A second achievementis to recognize the enormousdifferences between
(1) the local displays of sanctuariesand (2) the differencesbetween geometric/archaic and the classical sanctuaries. The later the less importantthe
differences become. So sanctuaries,before "housesfor the gods" (i.e. gods'
images) had been built, and their early development contradictour image
110
Book reviews
of "the" Greek sanctuary,thus ChristianeSourvinou-Inwood:Early Sanctuaries, the eighth century and ritual space (M&H 1-17); the pan-hellenic
festivals provide meeting-places for men all over the Greek world, and so
became a first "market"to acquirean idea, what is Greek in a sanctuary,see
CatherineMorgan: The origins of pan-Hellenism(M&H 18-44) and, more
specialized, ElizabethR. Gebhard:The evolution of pan-Hellenicsanctuary.
From archaeology to history at Isthmia (M&H 154-177). Also the image
of sanctuaries,excavatedby past generations,has been alteredconsiderably,
so Eleusis (seen by an philologist) and Samos: Kevin Clinton: The sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis. (M&H 110-124); Helmut Kyrieleis:
The Heraion of Samos (M&H 125-153). In contrast Emily Kearns treats
Sanctuary-Tombof Heroes: Between god and man: status and functions of
heroes and their sanctuaries(LSG 65-99) and Fritz Graf the liminal placing
of healing cults: Heiligtum und Ritual. Das Beispiel der griechisch-romischen Asklepieia (LSG 159-199).
A third set of questions has been discussed only recently, taking as a
seminal work Fritz Graf's Nordionische Kulte (1985): local religion and
polis-religion. Whereas earlier books worked with the hypothesis that virtually every Greek community revered every Greek god (and where a cult
of one god was not reported,it would be rathera lacuna in our evidence),
there is now a tendency to see the god or hero as a representativeof the
social groups within the polis or the community as a whole (employing
Durkheim's model Christiane Souvinou-Inwood: What is Polis-Religion?
in: Oswyn Murray; Simon Price [Eds]: The Greek City, Oxford 1990,
295-322). But one man/women could participatein one cult and join others to another cult. The view of Peter L. Berger that modernity created a
necessity for choosing in a religious marketand to play more than one role
(Germantitle of his book: Zwang zur Haresie) seems to be the social reality
of polytheistic religions in antiquity. Thus there is the task to ask for the
whole "market"in connection with the possible participators,inclusions and
exclusions of social groups. The inquirydemandsthe cooperationof philologists, archaeologistsand historiansof religion; it can be answeredonly in
a given field of research, the local communities of one polis (city with its
country). The task has just begun to be envisaged; systematic questions are
missing in the investigations,they should be posed by an historian of religions. Earlierstudies by RobertParkerlet me look forwardto his promised
book on Athenian religion-the attemptmade by Albert Schachter:Policy,
Book reviews
111
cult, and the placing of Greek sanctuaries(LSG 1-57) would have gained
by concentrationon the social, topographical,historicalinterferencesin one
region that found their expression in a sacral (and mythological) landscape.
A splendid example is Pierart'spaper <<Argosassoiff6e>>et <<Argosriche en
cavales>>.Provinces culturelles a l'epoque proto-historique(Pierart,Argos
118-155), though it is only a step in the directionmentioned. Most valuable
(and no one could imagine that it might be possible) is an archaeological
survey of the sanctuariesin a region, by Robin Hagg: GeometricSanctuaries
in the Argolid (in: Pierart,Argos p. 1-35). Some materialfor the question
of local religion could be found in the papersof MadeleineJost: Sanctuaires
rurauxet sanctuairesurbainsen Arcadie (LSG 205-238); eadem: La legende
de Melampous(Pierart,Argos 173-182). The new finds of a Heroon in Argos
are discussed in papers by Anne Pariente,Michele Daumas, Jean-Francois
Bommelaer (Pierart, Argos 195-304) and Rob W.M. Schumacher: Three
related sanctuaries of Poseidon: Geraistos, Kalauriaand Tainaron(M&H
62-87). The papers in Pi6rart'sArgos are good examples of the archaeological and epigraphicalapproachof the French school, apt especially for a
close local and temporalissue; comparativequestions (what is characteristic
for my local example?) are not answeredin a convincing matter.
All three volumes are indispensablefor librariesespecially those specializing in ancientcultures. The volumes are equippedwith notes, bibliography,
and indexes. A bibliographicalintroductionis given by Erik 0stby: Twenty
five years of researchon Greek sanctuaries(M&H 192-227). LSG has but a
few plans, the other are illustratedthroughout.In LSG the discussions following the papers are most valuable. The question, which Nanno Marinatos
poses in her short synthesis (M&H 228-233) "Whatwere Greek sanctuaries?" has gained new perspectivesand rewardingtasks: to connect the results
of archaeologicalfield-work with epigraphicaland philological commented
sources in a model of local religion. In my book on local religion in the
Argolid (forthcoming)I ventureda case study.
Seminar fur Religionswissenschaft
Universitit Tubingen
Corrensstr.12
D-72076 Tubingen
AUFFARTH
CHRISTOPH
Book reviews
112
JORGRUPKE,Kalender und Offentlichkeit.Die Geschichte der Reprasenta-
tion und religiosen Qualifikationvon Zeit in Rom (Religionsgeschichtliche Versucheund Vorarbeiten,vol. 40)-Berlin, New York: Walterde
Gruyter Verlag, 1995, 740 p., ISBN 3-11-014514-6,
DM 338.00.
The aim of this study is a cultural-scientificanalysis of the Roman calendar. R(ipke) wants to describe the organizationof time in a society in its
achievement, development, function and consequences. Therefore he necessarily touches some central problems of economic and above all political
history.
The work is divided into three parts of different quality. The first is
by far the soundest. After some introductoryreflections about the 'social
dimension of time' the examples of Roman calendarswhich are known so
far are presented, most of them from the time of the principate. They are
divided into those of the capital itself and those found outside Rome (pp. 39188). R. gives a short descriptionof the form and contents of the texts and
discusses their dates of composition. Most of the calendarscan be dated to
the time of Augustus and Tiberius,a periodonce designatedby G. Alfoldy as
the 'Geburtsstunde'of the epigraphicart of the principate(Gymnasium98,
1991, pp. 289-324). R. is right in stressing that the fragmentarystate of the
remains should not deceive us about the fact that the calendarsbelonged to
the most importantspecies of the epigraphicalart of the period;most of the
calendarswere made of marbleand were meantas muraldecoration(p. 167).
He points out the numerouserrors and the variationof the items, but one
has to remember the fact that our ideas of order and regular presentation
perhaps do not fit with those of antiquity.
The second part deals with the history of the fasti (pp. 191-484). It
is not possible to outline any single result; I can only quote some of
them. R. can make it probable that the Republican calendar was preceded by one of twelve lunar months-there was no year of ten monthssix of them with theophoric and six with numerical names. The date of
birth of the calendar, whose first epigraphical documentationdates from
the first century B.C., was about 300 B.C., the time when serious informations about the Roman republic begin. While discussing the lex Acilia
of 191 B.C., R. tries to explain the problem of intercalatio with hypothetical argumentsbelonging to the history of economy and religion and
NUMEN, Vol. 43
Book reviews
113
the prosopography. I think that plausibility or even certainty will never

be reached. R. gains safer ground as he treats the reform of the calendar by Iulius Caesar. His argumentsconcerning the bloom of the great
public calendarsin the early times of the Julio-Claudianprincipes and the
swift decline of this shortlivedtraditionare convincing (pp. 417-425). One
finds remarkableinformationin this part about the original meaning of the
Nonae and the abbreviationN(efas) P(iaculum), the tubilustriumand so
forth.
I must confess that I have great difficulty in understandingthe third
part "Kalender und Gesellschaft" (pp. 487-628). It deals with "Feriae:
Das Konzept des Feiertages", "Lokale Entscheidungsstrukturen:Ferialia",
"Strukturenromischen Kultes","WeiBeTage, schwarzeTage, kalendarische
Divination" and "Kalenderund Offentlichkeit".My difficulties have to do
with the vocabulary R. is using. He stresses the validity of the ferialia
compared to the fasti only for a certain group of people or a certain locality. Then he restricts: "Die Daten gelten fur die Gruppe als Gruppe,
den Ort als Ort, sie regeln nicht die Gesamtheit der religi6sen Aspekte
der betroffenen Individuen"(p. 527). So far, so good; the text continues: "Auf der Ebene des Individuumsmii3ten fur eine vollstandige Analyse neben der soziotemporalenUmwelt die fundamentalenbiotemporalen
und nootemporalenUmwelten, das heiB3tdie korperlichenund psychischen
Rhythmen, beriicksichtigtwerden. Die soziotemporaleUmwelt wire noch
einmal hinsichtlich der beteiligten (Sub-)Systeme zu differenzieren".Is this
an abstract vocabulary far away from reality or a mere jingle of words?
The study ends with a bibliography,an index of subjects and an index of
sources.
R. is endeavouringto provide a much more detailed study than is necessary for the subject under discussion. An additional criticism involves
mentioning irrelevantresearch (cf. my review in this periodical 29, 1992,
263). Here one can recognize the disastrousconsequences of data banks for
literaturein connection with a really manic effort to demonstrate 'knowledge' of research. I only give one example: In connection with the discussion aboutferiae R. mentions vacation for harvest and vintage (p. 430).
Absolutely superfluousin this context is his quoting of a book about the
importanceof wine since archaictimes. This inflates the notes and leads to
a bibliographyof 1,400 items (pp. 631-700). To this book one can apply
114
Book reviews
the german proverb 'weniger ware mehr gewesen'; this would have made
the reading less taxing and ultimately more interesting.
JohannWolfgang Goethe-Universitat
Seminar fur Griechische und R6mische Geschichte I
Senckenberganlage31
D-60054 Frankfurtam Main
MANFREDCLAUSS
BRIANP. CLARKE,
Piety and Nationalism: Lay VoluntaryAssociations and
the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Communityin Toronto, 1850-1895
(McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion no. 12)-Montreal
& Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queens University Press, 1993,
XII + 340 p., ISBN 0-7735-1130 (cloth), $33.95.
To illustrate the understandingof the laity's role in the Roman Catholic
Church during the middle decades of the nineteenth century Clarke cites
Bishop I. Bourget of Montreal: "Let each say in his heart: 'I hear my cure,
my cure hears the bishop, the bishop hears the Pope, and the Pope hears
Our Lord Jesus Christ"'. There was no place for activism on the part of
the laity out of the authorityof the clergy: "Justas the pontiff, the vicar of
Christ, was the unquestionedsovereign of the churchuniversal,so too were
the bishops and clergy to rule as virtual popes over their own dioceses and
parishes"(3). - The period covered in Clarke's study is determinedby the
types of voluntaryassociations found among the Irish Catholics of Toronto.
These Irish nationalistsocieties existed outside the formal structuresof the
church, but they were not unreligious or stood against the church. The nature of conflict between the societies and the clergy was the question of the
laity's right to exercise leadership independentlyof the clergy. So Clarke
places the "Torontoexperience" in the context of the two Irish-Catholic
awakeningsin the nineteenthcentury: one national,the other religious. He
demonstratesthat lay activists in the rich associational life, which ranged
from nationalistand fraternalassociations independentof the church to devotional and philanthropicassociations affilatedwith the church (like Saint
Joseph's Society, Saint Patrick'sTemperanceSociety, Saint Vincent de Paul
Society, Our Lady Conference, HibernianBenevolent Society and others)
played a pivotal role in transformingthe religious life of the community.
NUMEN, Vol. 43
Book reviews
115
The study or the "experience"closes in 1895, by which time the churchhad

reformed the understandingof laity's role and "the independentnationalist
societies had enteredinto decline and their place had been filled by churchaffilatedorganizations,decisively alteringthe patternof lay associationallife
in Toronto"(9). - The "Torontoexperience"is a study of an individualcase
and the experiences could not be generalized. The study is well occured
with rich bibliographicalreferences in the notes (pp. 263-331).
Am Tempelhof 6
D-53347 Alfter
NORBERT
M. BORENGASSER
GEORGE
J. TANABEand WILLAJ. TANABE,The Lotus Sutra in Japanese
Culture(Honolulu, Univ. of Hawaii Press), 1989, cloth, 239 p., $25.00,
ISBN 0-8248-1198-4.
IANREADER,
Religion in ContemporaryJapan (Honolulu, Univ. of Hawaii
1991,
cloth, 277 p., $39.00, ISBN 0-8248-1354-5.
Press),
INOUE(Ed.), New Religions (ContemporaryPapers in Japanese
NOBUTAKA
Religion 2, Inst. of JapaneseCultureand Classics, KokugakuinUniversity, Tokyo), 1991, hc., 280 p., ISBN 4-905853-00-1.
"The bible of half Asia". No need to specify that this designationrefers
to the Lotus Sutra. Its influence not only on various forms of Buddhism,
on the secretarian-doctrinalargumentsserving political manipulations(cf.
Ryogen in mid-Heian Japan), and last but not least on art are well-known.
J. LeRoy Davidson's The Lotus Sutra in ChineseArt appeared40 years ago.
Lotus-fans will rememberthe "Artsof the Lotus Sutra"exhibition held in
the National Museum at Nara in 1979 and the beautifulcatalogue published
on that occasion. The role played by the Sutramore specifically in Japanese
culture(sectariandevelopmentsfrom Tendaito Nichirenm,Lotus "scholasticism", doctrineand devotion(e.g., the Daimoku),poetry(e.g., Lotus-inspired
waka), and pictorial art-paintingin general as well as more specifically religious objects of worship) has been ratherneglected. The First International
Conference on the subject held at the Universityof Hawaii in 1984 will, so
one hopes, not be the last. The ten contributionsto the Conference volume
NUMEN,Vol.43
116
Book reviews
plus the editors' Introduction,make the book an interdisciplinaryachievement of high quality. Consideringthe fact that the Buddhism-derived"new
religions" of Japan are (almost) all Lotus-derived,it comes as no surprise
that the concluding chapter on the Lotus Sutra in modern Japan should be
by Helen Hardacre.Reviewers are professionallyobliged to complain about
something. So let us complain that there are only black-and-whiteand no
colour plates in this fine volume.
Are the Japanese "religious"?And what is the place of religion in contemporaryJapan? Much ink has been spilled over these partlymeaningless,
partly significant questions. Questionnaire-addictswill confirm that most
Japanese designate themselves as "not religious". This answer, however,
fails to account for the boom of the "new religions" and even more for the
increasingparticipationat local shrine festivals and matsuri. Since the matsuri boom appearsto be a grassrootphenomenon(encouragedno doubt by
tourist offices and municipalities),its relation to the establishment-religions
(Shinto and Buddhism) calls for closer examination. Hatsumode(The "first
visit" of the year to a temple duringthe first three days of the new year) is a
venerableJapanesecustom. According to the statistics of the TrafficPolice
the number of hatsumode visitors to shrines and temples throughoutJapan
in 1990 was 79.58 million-4.14 million more than in 1989.
All this by way of saying that Ian Reader's excellent book was long
overdue. This is not one more book on Religion(s) in Japanor on the "new
religions", but precisely a description of Religion in ContemporaryJapan,
and the author ranges freely and easily over an assortmentof case studies
of "religionin action": austereZen halls, crowdedtemples and matsuri,fire
rituals and much more. This is a book for readerswho not only enjoy good
descriptionbut also want to understandthe continuingrole and relevance of
religion in rapidly modernisingJapan.
NUMEN 39 (1992): 131 welcomed the initiative of the Institute of
Japanese Culture and Classics of KokugakuinUniversity to publish a research series in English. Vol. 1 was devoted to a Shinto subject par excellence: matsuri. Vol. 2 takes up a subject that during the last decades
has generated a flood of literature: the so-called "new religions". [Byron
Earharts'sbibliographyof western language materialson the new religions
(1970) had 96 pp. and 810 items. The 2nd ed. (1993) had grown to 213 pp.
1,447 items. By now a third ed. seems to be called for]. Some of these
Book reviews
117
sects/religions seem to be past their prime, but new ones are constantlyarising (cf. Mahikari,Agon-shu, the kokoro-no-jidaiphenomenon). But more interestingthan accountsof the latest shin shukyois the "newlook" with which
Japanesescholars are regardingthe phenomenon,and it is for this reason in
particularthat this slim volume is so very welcome. From the Editor's introductorychapter"RecentTrendsin the Study of JapaneseNew Religions"
to the translator'spostscript(pp. 265-278) which picks up all the loose ends
and synthesizes the variety of contributions,the volume should give nonJapanesestudentsof the subject an idea of what is going on in the field. Cf.
also the brief accountof the Shin ShukyoJiten in NUMEN (ibid.) pp. 132-3.
Hebrew University
Faculty of Humanities
Departmentof ComparativeReligion
Mount Scopus
Jerusalem91905, Israel
R.J.Z. WERBLOWSKY
JOACHIM
SUSS, Zur Erleuchtung unterwegs. Neo-Sannyasin in Deutschland und ihre Religion (MarburgerStudienzur Afrika- und Asienkunde,
vol. 2)-Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1994, 321 p., ISBN 3-49602531-X (paper),DM 48.00.
In 1970 BhagwanShree Rajneeshfoundedthe Neo-Sannyas-Movementin
India. He died in early 1990 underthe name of Osho, leaving behind one of
the most importantamong the new religious movements within the western
world. In the same year the authorof the present thesis carriedthroughhis
investigationsin a West-GermanNeo-Sannyas-Center.He enters a still new
territory,not only as far as the subjectis concernedbut also the method: his
technique of "narrativeinterview"for collecting qualifying data has hardly
ever been used so far within the history of religion and which he combines
with a phenomenologicalapproachwith referenceto W.C. Smith's "personification"in the study of religions. Especially in the first part aboutreligious
conceptions the presentationis accomplished mostly through narrativeinterview so that the subject is structuredby the believers themselves which
is then supplementedwith data gained by participantobservation and literary documents. The second part describes the religious practice of the
NUMEN,Vol.43
118
Book reviews
Neo-Sannyasin, which is markedby a special combinationof certain forms

of therapyand meditation. The thirdpart is dedicatedto the religious community system and supplies a brief historical survey over the rathereventful
twenty years of its existence as a group. As in the first part, the author
succeeds in developing his scientific approachconvincingly by presenting
the vantage point of the believers by way of oral history capturinga chapter in a history of religion "from the bottom". The present thesis portrays
Neo-Sannyas as an actually western form of religiosity that in its essence
is individualistic, its centre being the spirituallymotivated self-experience
and the spiritualgrowthprocess with the salvation goal of self-realizationto
which all other religious aspects are functionally subordinated.The author
sticks consistently to his scientific approachwhich, however, leaves some
questions unanswered. One might thereforemiss the sociological implications of the individualisticway to salvationof the Neo-Sannyasinwithin the
context of modernization. Besides, the author's method of "polishing the
style" of his interview material seems somewhat problematic-needlessly
he exposes himself to the suspicion of manipulation.Neverthelessthis wellsubstantiatedand methodically reflected thesis as a whole leaves one with
a positive impression.
Sielwall 15
D-28203 Bremen
DIRKOTTEN
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Periodicals
Acta Comparanda,FVG, VI (1995).
MonumentaNipponica, 50 (1995), 2, 3.
The WesternBuddhist Review, 1 (1994).
HISTORYOF RELIGIONS,34 (1995), 4
MarkMacWilliams,BuddhistPilgrim/BuddhistExile: Old and New Images of

Retired EmperorKazan in the Saigoku KannonTemple Guidebooks
Laurie L. Patton, Speech Acts and Kings' Edicts: Vedic Words and Rulership
in TaxonomicalPerspective
Kay A. Read, Sun and EarthRulers: What the Eyes CannotSee in Mesoamerica
MESOAMERICAN
RELIGIONS
David Carrasco, Give Me Some Skin: The Charismaof the Aztec Warrior
Philip P Arnold, PaperTies to Land: Indigenousand Colonial MaterialOrientations to the Valley of Mexico
Amos Megged, "Rightfrom the Heart":Indians' Idolatryin MendicantPreachings in Sixteenth-CenturyMesoamerica
Book Reviews
RELIGION,25 (1995), 1
SYMPOSIUMON ANTHROPOLOGY
J. Samuel Preus, Anthropomorphismand Spinoza's Innovations

Gustavo Benavides, Cognitive and Ideological Aspects of Divine Anthropomorphism
RobertA. Segal, Tylor's AnthropomorphicTheory of Religion
Edward A. Yonan,Religion as Anthropomorphism:A New Theory that
Invites Definitional and Epistemic Scrutiny
Stewart Guthrie,Response
NUMEN, Vol. 43
120
Publications received
W.J.Johnson, The Religious Function of Jaina Philosophy: AnekdntavadaReconsidered
Alan Schofield, The Search for IconographicVariationin Roman Mithraism
Hugh B. Urban, The Remnants of Desire: Sacrificial Violence and Sexual
Transgressionin the Cult of Kapalikasand in the Writings of Georges Bataille
J.S. La Fontaine and David Frankfurter,Diabolic Debates: Replies to Stephen
Kent (Discussions)
Book Reviews
FUR RELIGIONSWISSENSCHAFT,
ZEITSCHRIFT
3 (1995), 1
Christoph Kleine, Ein wunderbarerTod: buddhistische"Hingeburtslegenden"

im Nihon-ojo-gokuraku-ki
ThomasHase, Waco-die inszenierteApokalypse
Carsten Koch, RichardReitzensteins Beitrage zur Mandaerforschung
LynneHume, Mental Imagery: the Witch's Doorway to the Cosmos
Hubert Seiwert, Religion in der Geschichte der Modeme
Books
(Listing in this section does not preclude subsequentreviewing)

Ess, Josef van, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. JahrhundertHidschra.
Eine Geschichte des religiosen Denkens im friihen Islam. Band VI: Texte
XXII-XXXV-Berlin and New York, Walterde Gruyter,1995, VIII + 490 p.,
DM 368.00, ISBN 3-11-014267-8 (cloth).
Kloppenborg,Ria and WouterJ. Hanegraaff(Eds), Female Stereotypesin Religious
Traditions. Studies in the History of Religions, NUMEN Bookseries (edited by
H.G. Kippenbergand E. Thomas Lawson), vol. 66-Leiden, New York, Koln,
E.J. Brill, 1995, 263 p., US$ 68.75, ISBN 90-04-102906 (cloth).
Overbeck, Franz, Werke und NachlaB3. Band 4: Kirchenlexicon. Texte. Ausgewahlte ArtikelA-I. In Zusammenarbeitmit MarianneStauffacher-Schaubherausgegebenvon Barbaravon Reibnitz-Stuttgart und Weimar,VerlagJ.B. Metzler, 1995, XLIV + 692 p., DM 148.00, ISBN 3-476-00965-3 (cloth).
Olmsted, Garrett, The Gods of the Celts and the Indo-Europeans. Innsbrucker
Beitrage zur Kulturwissenschaft(hg. von Wolfgang Meid), Sonderheft 92Innsbruck,Verlagdes Institutsfur Sprachwissenschaftder UniversitatInnsbruck,
1994, XVI + 493 p., 6S 1400.00, ISBN 3-85124-173-8 (cloth).
121
Zafiropulo,Ghiorgo, L'illuminationdu Buddha. De la quete a l'annonce de l'eveil.

Essais de chronologie relativeet de stratigraphietextuelle. InnsbruckerBeitrage
zur Kulturwissenschaft(hg. von Wolfgang Meid), Sonderheft 87-Innsbruck,
Verlag des Instituts fur Sprachwissenschaftder Universitat Innsbruck, 1993,
199 p., oS 760.00, ISBN 3-85124-168-3 (paper).
Pirenne-Delforge,Vinciane,L'Aphroditegrecque. Keros Supplements,4-Athenes,
Liege, Centre Internationald'Etude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 1994,
527 p., FB 1800, ISSN 0776-3824 (paper).
Kellens, Jean, Le pantheon de l'Avesta ancien-Wiesbaden, Dr. Ludwig Reichert
Verlag, 1994, 159 p., DM 98.00, ISBN 3-88226-207-9 (cloth).
Feldtkeller,Andreas, Im Reich der syrischen Gottin. Eine religios pluraleKulturals
Umwelt des frihen Christentums.Studien zum VerstehenfremderReligionen,
8-Gitersloh, GutersloherVerlagshaus,1994, 333 p., DM 148.00, ISBN 3-57901790-X (paper).
Standhartinger,Angela, Das Frauenbildim Judentumder hellenistischen Zeit. Ein
Beitrag anhandvon 'Josephund Aseneth'. Series: Arbeitenzur Geschichte des
antikenJudentumsund des Urchristentums,vol. 26-Leiden, New York, Koln,
E.J. Brill, 1995, 289 p., US$ 68.75, ISBN 90-04-10350-3 (cloth).
Platvoet, Jan and Karel van der Toorn (Eds), Pluralismand Identity. Studies in Ritual Behaviour. NUMEN Bookseries (edited by H.G. Kippenbergand E. Thomas
Lawson), vol. 67-Leiden, New York,Koln, E.J. Brill, 1995, 376 p., US$ 102.00,
ISBN 90-04-10373-2 (cloth).
Kippenberg,Hans G. and Guy G. Stroumsa,Secrecy and Concealment. Studies in
the History of Mediterraneanand Near EasternReligions. NUMEN Bookseries
(edited by H.G. Kippenbergand E. Thomas Lawson), vol. 65-Leiden, New
York, Koln, E.J. Brill, 1995, 406 p., US$ 100.00, ISBN 90-04-10235-3 (cloth).
Wolfson, Elliot R., Circle in the Square. Studies in the Use of Genderin Kabbalistic
Symbolism-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, 268 p.,
$18.95, ISBN 0-7914-2406-5 (pbk.).
Wolfson, Elliot R., Along the Path. Studies in KabbalisticMyth, Symbolism, and
Hermeneutics-Albany, NY, State Universityof New YorkPress, 1995, 283 p.,
$18.95, ISBN 0-7914-2408-1 (pbk.).
Silman, Yochanan, Philosopher and Prophet. Judah Halevi, the Kuzari, and the
Evolution of His Thought. Translatedfrom the Hebrew by Lenn J. Schramm.
SUNY series in Judaica-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press,
1995, 370 p., $18.95, ISBN 0-7914-2462-6 (pbk.).
Kassam, Tazim R., Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance. Hymns of the Satpanth
Isma'ili Muslim Saint, Pir Shams (McGill studies in the history of religions)Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, 424 p., $16.95, ISBN
0-7914-2592-4 (pbk.).
122
Pas, Julian, Visions of Sukhavati. Shan-Tao'sCommentaryon the Kuan Wu-LiangShou-FoChing. SUNY series in BuddhistStudies (MatthewKapstein,Editor)Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, 452 p., $24.95, ISBN
0-7914-2520-7 (pbk.).
Fu, CharlesWei-hsun and Steven Heine (Eds), Japanin Traditionaland Postmodern
Perspectives-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, 334 p.,
$14.95, ISBN 0-7914-2470-7 (pbk.).
Swearer,Donald K., The BuddhistWorldof SoutheastAsia. SUNY series in Religion
(Harold Coward, Editor)-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press,
1995, 258 p., ISBN 0-7914-2460-X (pbk.).
Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (Ed.), Curatorsof the Buddha. The Study of Buddhism under
Colonialism-Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1995,
298 p., ?13.50, ISBN 0-226-49309-1 (paper); ?36.75, ISBN 0-226-49308-3
(cloth).
Kripal, Jeffrey J., Kali's Child. The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna-Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press,
1995, 386 p., ?15.95, ISBN 0-226-45376-6 (pbk.);?39.95, ISBN 0-226-45375-8
(cloth).
Newman, Barbara,From Virile Woman to WomanChrist.Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature-Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995,
355 p., ?17.95, ISBN 0-8122-1545-1 (pbk.); ?37.95, ISBN 0-8122-3273-9
(cloth).
Surtz, Ronald E., Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. The
Mothers of Teresa of Avila-Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,
1995, 223 p., ?32.95, ISBN 0-8122-3292-5 (cloth).
Bediako, Kwame, Christianityin Africa. The Renewal of a Non-WesternReligionEdinburgh,EdinburghUniversity Press (Orbis Books), 1995, XII + 276 p.,
?16.95, ISBN 0-7486-0625-4 (pbk.).
Capps, Walter H., The New Religious Right. Piety, Patriotism, and PoliticsColumbia, SC, University of South Carolina Press, 1995, XVI + 249 p.,
US$ 15.95, ISBN 0-87249-741-0 (pbk.).
Silber, Ilana Friedrich,Virtuosity,charisma, and social order. A comparativesociological study of monasticism in TheravadaBuddhism and medieval Catholicism. Cambridgecultural social studies-Cambridge, New York, Melbourne,
CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995, 250 p., ?40.00, ISBN 0-521-41397-4 (hb.).
Coope, Jessica A., The Martyrsof C6rdoba. Communityand Family Conflict in an
Age of Mass Conversion-Lincoln and London, University of NebraskaPress,
1995, 113 p., $25.00, ISBN 0-8032-1471-5 (cloth).
Shadid, W.A.R. and P.S. van Koningsveld, Religious Freedom and the Position of
Islam in Western Europe. Opportunitiesand Obstacles in the Acquisition of
Equal Rights (with an extensive bibliography)-Kampen, Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995, 229 p., DFL 64.90, ISBN 90-390-00-654 (paper).
123
Sfameni Gasparro, Giulia (Ed.), "Agathe elpis": studi-religiosi in onore di Ugo

Bianchi. Storia delle religioni, vol. 11-Roma, "L'ERMA"di Bretschneider,
1995, 551 p., ISBN 88-7062-835-3 (paper).
Turner,Victor and Edith Turner,Image and Pilgrimage in ChristianCulture. AnthropologicalPerspectives. Lectureson the history of religions, n. s., 11-New
York, Columbia University Press, 1995, 281 p., ISBN 0-231-04287-6 (pbk.).
Cannon, Dale, Six Ways of Being Religious. A Frameworkfor ComparativeStudies
of Religion-Belmont, CA etc., WadsworthPublishingCompany,1996, 402 p.,
ISBN 0-534-25332 (pbk.).
Stietencron,Heinrichvon and JorgRupke(Eds), Toten im Krieg. Veroffentlichungen
des "Institutsfur HistorischeAnthropologiee. V.",vol. 6-Freiburg/Miinchen,
Verlag Karl Alber, 1995, 494 p., DM 128.00, ISBN 3-495-47802-7 (cloth).
Daiber, Karl-Fritz, Religion unter den Bedingungen der Moderne. Die Situation
in der BundesrepublikDeutschland-Marburg, diagonal-Verlag,1995, 197 p.,
DM 29.80, ISBN 3-927165-33-6 (pbk.).
Stephenson, Gunther, Wege zur religiosen Wirklichkeit. Phanomene, Symbole,
Werte-Darmstadt, WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft,1995, 227 p., DM 45.00,
ISBN 3-534-12560-6 (pbk.).
Zusanek, Harald,Rhodos und Helios. Mythos, Topos, und Kulturentwicklung.Ed.
by Sibylla Hoffmann-Frankfurtam Main, Berlin, Bern, New York,Paris,Wien,
Peter Lang, 1994, 561 p., DM 128.00, ISBN 3-631-47376-1 (cloth).
Schmieke, Marcus, Das letzte Geheimnis. Naturwissenschaftund Bewultsein. Mit
einem Beitrag von Wolfgang Wiedergut. Tattva Viveka-Schriftenreihe,1Frankfurtam Main, INES-Verlag,1995, 226 p., ISBN 3-9804144-0-X (pbk.).
Religion and Modernizationin China. Proceedings of the Regional Conference
of the InternationalAssociation for the History of Religions held in Beijing,
China, April 1992, edited by Dai Kangsheng,Zhang Xinying, Michael Pye with
editorial assistance providedby Jocelyn Pye-Cambridge, Roots and Branches,
1995, 346 p., ISBN 0-9525772-0-8 (pbk.).
Widengren,Geo/ Hultgard,Anders/ Philonenko, Marc, Apocalyptiqueiranienneet
dualismeqoumranien.Recherchesintertestamentaires,
2-Paris, AdrienMaisonneuve, Librairie d'Am6rique et d'Orient, 1995, 225 p., ISBN 2-7200-1098-7
(pbk.).
Diez de Velasco, Francisco,Los caminos de la muerte. Religi6n, rito e imagenes del
paso al mis alla en la Grecia antigua-Madrid, EditorialTrotta, 1995, 198 p.,
ISBN 84-8164-016-6.
Diakonoff, Igor M., Archaic Myths of the Orient and the Occident. Orientalia
Gothoburgensia,10-Goteborg, Acta UniversitatisGothoburgensis,1995, 216 p.,
SEK 180.00, ISBN 91-7346-276-4 (pbk.); ISSN 0078-656X.
124
King, Richard, Early Advaita Vedantaand Buddhism. The MahayanaContext of

the Gaudapadiya-karika.SUNY series in Religious Studies (Harold Coward,
Editor)-Albany, NY, State Universityof New YorkPress, 1995, 341 p., $19.95,
ISBN 0-7914-2514-2 (pbk.).
Deutsch, Eliot, Religion and Spirituality-Albany, NY, State Universityof New York
Press, 1995, 151 p., ISBN 0-7914-2458-8 (pbk.).
LAWAND THECONSTRUCTION
OF IDENITI'ES
RELIGION,
PREFACE
HANS G. KIPPENBERG
Both in Europeand America every schoolchild learnsthat the state

and the church are separate. In fact they are explicitly taughtthe language of "the separationof churchand state."Since all scholars once
went to school it is easy enough to notice that they have all learned
their lesson well. As a consequence we lack studies which give the
"wrong"answer: that state and church, or more precisely, law and
religion are interrelated. Such is the case even in societies such as
the United States of America which contain a constitutionalseparation of the two. In the United States of America Thomas Jefferson
was the driving force behind the First Amendmentto the constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to partitionthe Governmentfor a redress of
grievances." The words of the First Amendment sound simple. In
fact they have their work cut out for them since they appear to be
self contradictory;they acknowledge the religiousness of Americans
without establishing religion.
The argument has been made more than once that the field of
religious studies is dominatedby a strong Protestantcurrent which
implicitly views religion as a privatematter. The public institutions
of the secularized state may not aid in the establishmentof religion.
Any public institutiondisplaying a Christmascreche on public property or founding a Jewish school for handicappedchildren will be
legally reprimandedfor acting against the law. But today religions
ask for recognition by state institutionseven in the most secularized
of societies. That fact causes friction and raises fundamentalarguments about the propernatureand role of religion in a society. Is a
NUMEN,Vol.43
126
Hans G. Kippenberg
creche displayed in a Christmassetting a genuine religious symbol?

Does it transforma commercial setting, situated in a secular context, into a religious one? Cases of this kind defy easy classification.
As long as religions are regardedas primarily private matters, the
decision is obvious. It is the task of the state to remove all kinds
of religious representationsfrom the public sphere. But what would
happen if it were the case that religions were not a matter of private faith, what would happen if it were the case that religion were
not a natural category with universal application? What if it were
the case that the bordersbetween the private and the public domain
were far more vague than they were perceived to be? Answers to
such questions would have importantconsequences for the worlds of
law and litigation. Anyway, is it not the case that religions always
function contextually,that religious symbols in commercial contexts
have lost their inherentsacredness? However,what about the reverse
argument,that the display of a creche in a public context indeed establishes religion and is against the law? Who is right, who wrong?
And notice the paradox: a faithful adherentof a religion may be seriously offended by the argumentsin supportof a public display of
his or her holy symbols.
A study of the interrelationof law and religion according to our
established models lead to a dead end. The contributorsto this special issue attempta fresh approach.They deal with theoreticalissues
by examiningjudicial processes. Startingwith judicial facts they end
with issues in the study of religion. A "deep interpretation"discovers in the facts a structuraltension between religion as an external
phenomenon that obeys the law and as an ethos or worldview shaping tacitly an entire culture capable of eluding the law. Take for
example Japanese religion. In Japan state and religion officially are
separated. Nevertheless some years ago the supreme court declared
the deification of a member of the JapaneseSpecial Defence Forces
constitutional. The apotheosis was about celebratingcivic pride, not
about religion.
From these studies we learn that law and jurisdictionare sensitive
to meanings attributedto religion in public communication.To study
Preface
127
litigation aroundthe issue of religion in the public sphereopens up an

exciting vista for the contemporaryhistory of religions. In America
the First Amendmenthas had a legal impact differentfrom its overt
meaning. It did not disestablishreligion; it establisheddifferentkinds
of public discourses about religion.
UniversitatBremen
Fachbereich9
Postfach 330440
D-28334 Bremen
HANS G. KIPPENBERG
RELIGION, LAW AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTIT'IIES

INTRODUCTION
WINNIFRED FALLERS SULLIVAN
Summary
This introductionsets the academicand historicalcontext for the four articlesthat
follow. It considers how the moder legal disestablishmentof religion has changed
both religion and law and the nature of the interactionbetween them. It further
argues that there has been insufficient academic attention given to the effect of
disestablishmenton both religion and the discourse about religion in moder secular
society.
Many of the inhabitantsof the villages of Chiapisin southernMexico now participatein, and have for centuries, both modern Mayan
and Christianreligious traditions,as well as syncretic fusings of the
two. In more "traditional"villages, as they are called, village governance and an elaborateceremonialschedule which varies from village
to village, are administeredby a groupof village elders, among whom
are distributedthe leadership of "church"and "state." As the result
of recent evangelization, some villagers are choosing to become exclusively Protestantsor Catholics and to withdrawfrom participation
in village religious and political life. In local parlancethis would be
viewed as choosing to be "religious"ratherthan choosing to remain
"traditional."When this choice is made, the villagers are often forced
by the elders to leave their villages and move to new villages created
by and for these Protestantor Catholic exiles.1
In 1992 Mexico passed constitutionalamendmentsextending religious freedom and recognizing the legal existence of religious corporations. The Chiapinexiles are awareof and assert to the Mexican
governmenttheir constitutionalright to remain in their villages and
to have their religious freedom acknowledged. The Mexican government is pressured at the same time, however, in compensation
NUMEN, Vol. 43
Religion, Law and the Constructionof Identities
129
for centuriesof often violent oppressionof the indigenouscommunities of Mexico, to recognize the religious, culturaland even political
autonomy of the Indian communities.
The ongoing process of the legal disestablishmentof religion and
the legal enshrinementof religious freedom-a feature of the modem period across the globe-can be seen in microcosm in Chiapis.
Increasingly, governments around the world are urged to acknowledge individualrights of conscience and radicalreligious pluralismamong and within religions-in the context of a secular or "neutral"
legal system. How can nations choose between individualclaims for
free exercise of religion and the demandsof communitiesfor control
of their religious life? How can religions peacefully coexist under
and freedom of conscience be recognizedby governmentsand courts
that, for historicalreasons, are often ideologically estrangedfrom religion and/or simply inadequatelypreparedto talk about religion at
all?
The Chiapin situation and its counterpartsin other parts of the
world presentchallenging problemsfor theoristsof humanrights and
constitutionallaw and displays some interestingaspects of the modern relationship between religion and law. In adjudicatingamong
these claims and in devising legislative and judicial strategiesto address these situations,the questions arises as to whetherreligion is a
useful category for law at all or whether it simply creates too much
ambiguity?
Religious freedom and its corollary,the legal disestablishmentof
religion, are justly extolled as among the importanthuman accomplishments of the last two hundredyears. The First Amendmentto
the United States Constitution,2for example, is widely understoodto
be the bedrock of American democracy and its religion clauses to
be paradoxicallythe immediate cause of the tremendousvitality of
religion in the United States. The religious intolerance,persecution
and wars that formed the long and sorry prologue to these moder
achievementsare too often forgottenin the nostalgic calls of religious
nationalists for a returnto state-sponsoredreligion as a cure for the
perceived evils of the secular society.
130
WinnifredFallers Sullivan
Disestablishment of religion, however, has not proved to be as

simple, or its results as benign, as its proponentshad hoped. Disestablishmentof religion combined with a guaranteeof religious freedom is now legally prescribed in some form in most countries of
the world but the actual shape that these distinctivelymodern3conditions will take is still evolving. Furthermore,the structuralchanges
that have occurredand are occurringin religion and law as a result
of these prescriptionsare only beginning to be studied in a serious
way.4 Religion, once put in its place, has not withered away like the
Marxist state, as some secularistshad expected. It has turnedout to
be amazingly resilient and at times disturbinglyprotean.
Religion and law are cultural features of all societies and their
interactionalmost always problematic,no matterhow you define religion and law. Academic considerationof the relationshipbetween
religion and law has been limited by the available models used for
considerationof these issues. Academic study of religion and law issues has been undertaken,generally,either within the paradigmof the
history and philosophy of Westernchurch-staterelations or through
the use of sociological secularizationtheory. Both these approaches
have tended to use a single model for religion in the moder context:
the voluntaryassociation of people who are united by sharedbeliefs.
Lawyers, as well, both legal scholars and practitioners,to the extent
that they are interestedin religion, often work within these outdated
paradigmswith little awareness of the assumptionsthey are making
about religion or of moder scholarshipin religious studies. Scholars of religion, meanwhile, have rarelybeen interestedin law unless
religious law is an explicit and central feature of the legal tradition
they are studying. They tend to give insufficientattentionto the legal
frameworkin which all religion is necessarily constructed,and fail to
take account of the effect that legal structureshave had and continue
to have on religious forms.
The articles here presentedaddressstructuralissues in the moder
relationshipof religion and law in the United States.5Each addresses
the intersection of religion and law as it is displayed in a particular
community in the United States. The American location of these
131
papers is intended to provide the example of an importanthistorical

case of religious disestablishmentwithout suggesting that American
constitutionalstructureand history exhausts the possibilities for understandingand living with disestablishedreligions in a secular society. All of the communities here presentedhave parallels in other
countries. These pieces are intended, rather,to be an invitation to
wider comparativescholarshipin this area.
Elizabeth Dale's careful reconsiderationof two seventeenth century law cases about religion from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
illustrates the complexity of the relationshipbetween religion and
law already at work at the beginning of the modem period. A close
look at a communitystrugglingto found a new polity based in God's
law, her article works as a cautionarytale for those contemporary
legal scholars who would draw close and easy connections between
Western law and its theological origins or justifications-who see
theology as a solution to the positivist crisis in law. Even in a small
and relativelyhomogeneouscommunitythe range of possible accommodations between religion and law and the conflict among them is
instructivehere as it is in Chiapis.
Susan Gooding's paper sees Americanlaw, and the Americanfederal courts in particular,as a continuinglocation for culturalnegotiation about the role of religion in the constructionof Native American
identities. Religious identification,as a self-conscious label for Indians, is seen here as having a fluctuatingrole in relationto the ongoing
battles between Native Americansand the United States government.
The rising, falling and blending of Christian and native traditions
may be understoodin counterpointto the largerstory of religion and
American law.
My paper on the Kiryas Joel case displays the unacknowledged
differences in theories of religion supportingvariouspositions on the
First Amendment in the federal courts. The judges themselves at
the local trial court and appellate levels are shown to operate with
different understandingsof the nature of human religion and of its
relationshipto law while the Hasidic communityof New Yorkoffers
132
not only competing theological understandingsof the principles embodied in the First Amendment,but also a different and competing
legal system. Accommodationof the needs of such separatistgroups
raises here, as it does in the Mexican situation, difficult and urgent
questions of national identity and local freedom.
Lawrence Sullivan's paper on the Waco case reveals a huge gulf
between scholars of religion and law enforcement in approachesto
religion, in particularto the understandingof the motives and actions
of persons participatingin charismatically-ledapocalyptic religious
groups. There is at once a surreal and tragic inevitability to the
collision which occurredbetween two radicallydifferentways of understandingwhat religion is.
Each of these papers addresses a situationwhich is peculiarly the
result of the legal disestablishmentof religion as it has generallybeen
understoodin the moder West since the Reformation. This moder
disestablishment-as I will call it-has turned out to mean more
than the simple separationof the administrationof church and state.
An unintended by-product, it appears, of modern disestablishment,
dependent as it is on a narrow and distinctively post-Reformation
understandingof religion as appropriatelylimited to the voluntary
association of like-minded individuals, can be seen in these papers
to be a distortion in both academic and public representationsof
religion-a distortionwhich resultsfrom the displacementof religion.
Long before the drafting of the United States Constitution, the
move across the Atlantic by EuropeanChristianscan be understood
as the beginningof whatbecame and continuesto be an ongoing effort
at disestablishmentof religion in the Americas-at the deprivileging
of particularpublic theologies. This first Americandisestablishment,
the actual physical move, supportedby anabaptistinterpretationsof
Pauline theology in North America and by counter-reformationmission theology in the South, was caused by the actualuprootingof national churches from their largely geographicallyorganized parishes
in Europe. They were set free to find a new form, divorced from
"place,"in JonathanZ. Smith's sense.6
133
This new freedom from place gave rise in the United States to
new theological and political argumentsas the English Puritansdiscussed in Dale's paper-and later Catholics and others-struggled to
invent a new kind of society in a new land, a land unmarkedby the
sacralizinghistory and structuresof the old. (It was strongly marked
by soon destroyed sacralizingstructuresof existing indigenous traditions.) This new freedom gave rise to distinctly new religious forms.
Sidney Mead describes the primarynew form in the United States,
American protestantdenominationalism,as being characterizedby a
sectariantendency leading to historylessness,the voluntaryprinciple,
the mission enterprise,revivalism,pietism and competition. He does
not regard the new forms of the new place as altogether benign.7
These papersillustratethis process of displacementat various stages.
In terrible synchrony with the new Europeancreation in America, was the holocaust which, along with murderand exile, explicitly
"disestablished"Native American religions which are the subject of
Gooding's article. The outlawing of Indian religion drove it underground for several hundredyears. Eventually-in the 1970s-a new
attentionto religion arose in Indiancommunitiesand a new acknowledgment of Indian religious forms, religious forms which in creative
ways respondedto, and, in turn,influencedthe religious forms of the
larger American community.
The village of KiryasJoel, discussed in my paper,containsthe remnant of anotherviolent and involuntaryuprooting,an uprootingwhich
destroyedone kind of establishmentand gave shapeto anotherform of
disestablished American religion. The self-contained self-governing
ghettoes of Eastern Europe have become the parasiticfundamentalist enclaves of moder Westerncities-paradoxically seeking to bind
themselves with laws designed to liberate.
Finally, the BranchDavidiansdiscussed in LawrenceSullivan'spaper offer an apocalypticcry of anguish, an end-of-milleniumlament,
perhaps, for a loss of place. They seem to have been a community
so restless for a home that it had to bring on itself its own final
solution-forced perhapsby its unwillingness to conform its religion
134
to the expectations of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and

Firearms.
The loss of place accompanyingdisestablishmentand its effects on

the shape of religion is an unsolved problemin modem religion, one
which is peculiarly the result of an attempt to disestablish religion
legally while at the same time to confine it to a very limited scope
in peoples' lives. In each of the communities representedin these
papers, religion as a free-floatingphenomenon-re-imagined first in
the Americansetting as a privatevoluntaryassociationof people with
similarbeliefs-comes into contact with law newly conceived as secular and the results are unsettling. This displacementis emblematic
of a largerglobal phenomenonin which religious diasporahave multiplied at a rapid rate.8 All nations now contain these fragments of
former religious establishments.
The ongoing disestablishment of religion in America has profoundly affected the shape of Americanreligion-all American religion not just the religion of these now marginalizedcommunities. The
modem legal disestablishmentof religion has also profoundlyaffected
discourse and action about religion in the public forum everywhere.
The legal discourse of modem disestablishmenthas changed religion
and the way it is understoodin public conversationin the following,
often unacknowledged,ways, ways that often contrast sharply with
the way religion is understoodby "traditionally"religious people and
in academic discourse about religion.9
-Religion has been throwninto relief by disestablishmentbecause
religion is now seen as separatefrom other aspects of humanculture.
Religious people are seen as differentfrom other people.10Disestablishment raises the question of what religion is. The definition of
religion is not raised when religion and culture, while distinct, are
understoodas interwoven. The questions then are about boundaries
within a particularreligious tradition.The MassachusettsBay Colony
stands at the intersectionbetween these two worlds, at a point when
the community'sunderstandingof itself was moving from one based
in religion to one based in law.
135
-When religion is disestablishedreligion is explicitly defined by

and occupies a space bounded by secular law. In "traditional"religion, religion and law interact constantly, although they are not
always in harmony. The contrast between the relationship of religion and law for the Hasids of Kiryas Joel and for the justices of
the Supreme Court highlights this effect. The religious adherentsof
Kiryas Joel struggle to resist the SupremeCourt's legal definition of
their community.
-Religion now defends itself in oppositionto secularism. "Established" or "traditional"religion is usually defended by an authority
with at least quasi-governmentalstatus which operates as a location
for struggles over definition and in which true religion is understood
in opposition to heresy or magic. There was tremendous support
across the American religious spectrumfor the Kiryas Joel community in the SupremeCourtbecause religion itself was perceived to be
under attack.
-When religion is disestablishedall religions are to be evaluated
equally so that critical judgment about religion becomes difficult.
Distinctions among religions are not permitted.For the law enforcement officials at Waco, Koresh was a criminal so he could not be
religious. To think otherwise would have been to threatentheir own
religion.
-Because of the removal of religion as a subject of universaleducation and of public conversationgenerally,disestablishmentseems
to have led to widespreadignorance about religion, both one's own
and other peoples'. When religion is established it is permissible to
educate people in religion and their common education makes critical conversation possible. For all the differences Dale wishes to
emphasize, the divines of MassachusettsBay, unlike the law enforcement officials of Waco, were engaged in an informed and educated
disagreementabout biblical authority.
-Disestablishment has resulted in a privatizationand individualization of religion. Establishedreligion allows room for a dynamic
interplay between the individual and the group in defining religion.
The dissentingIndiansof San JuanChamulaandthe dissentingHasids
136
of Kiryas Joel are being forced to choose between their individual

and communal identities because of secular law.
-Disestablished religion is defined as a source of morality and
virtue so that people do not see religion as compromised and as a
potential source of danger once it is disestablished. In "traditional"
religion, because religion is establishedit is seen to encompassthe full
range of human possibility and it can be understoodto encompass a
moral spectrum. Disestablishedreligion is often functionallydefined
in a secular society as a political tool for teaching morality. It has
been domesticated.
-Religion is defined as faith or conscience ratherthan as action.
Established religion tends to be about the whole person, body and
soul. The religiousness of people comes into conflict with law in the
modem world because they want to do religious things. It makes it
simplerfor secularlaw if religion is definedas freedomof conscience.
-Disestablishment of religion has resulted in the reification of
religions. The demand of law for facts on which to operate tends to
producecaricaturesof religious life drawnto the specificationsof the
religious experience of the judge or lawyer in question.
I do not argue here for the re-establishmentof religion. That is,
in any case, impossible. Another kind of disestablishmentis necessary, however. A serious distortionof the public space and of public
discourse has resulted from insufficientattentionto the effects of the
legal disestablishmentof religion, a distortionwhich needs scholarly
attention. Further,I would argue that this distortion is a part of a
specific history, a history that begins with the Reformation. Around
the world legal disestablishmentof religion is built on a largely postReformationmodel of religion as being individual, internal, moralistic and private. Meanwhile, in religious studies, religion is more
and more coming to be understoodas an extremely complex mix of
myth and ritual and as remarkablyvarious: closely bound up with
culture and social structures,a resource for group identity as well
as individual choice, intimately tied to notions of the body and of
activity in the world, deeply compromisedby violence and venality,
and inevitably public, inseparablefrom the rest of human activity.
137
If it is understoodthat secularizationcannot be the goal because

disestablishmentas it is presently understoodis impossible and resacralizationcannot be the goal because it results in establishment
and is unjust, perhaps a way can be found to acknowledge human
religion as a diverse, complex and constantlychanging phenomenon,
one which has an uneasy relationshipto law and its demandsfor clear
boundariesand categories.
The essays in this volume of Numen are intended to be a contribution to an ongoing conversationabout religion and law that draws
together different academic disciplines including anthropology,sociology, religious studies, history, and law. In the long run this conversation, like all importantacademic conversationstoday, needs to
be comparativein method and global in perspective. It is hoped that
these papers may provide an impetus for increased attention to the
interactionof religion and law on the part of scholars of religion
Washingtonand Lee University
Departmentof Religion
Lexington, VA 24450, USA
1
WINNIFREDFALLERSSULLIVAN
George A. Collier with Elizabeth Lowery Quaratiello,Basta!: Land and the

ZapatistaRebellion in Chiapis (Oakland:Institutefor Food and DevelopmentPolicy,
1994), and conversationsof the authorwhile in Chiapas in August, 1995.
2 The First Amendment to the United States Constitutionprovides: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishmentof religion, or prohibitingthe free
exercise thereof; or abridgingthe freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Governmentfor a redress of
grievances."
3 It is
perhaps not appropriateto limit the phenomenonwhich I discuss hereof religion and its effects-entirely to modernity. There are
disestablishment
legal
in
interesting parallels other historical time periods and other places, although in
each case, pluralism was an occasion for more or less tolerance, not of complete
disestablishment.The ancient Romans, for example, and later the OttomanEmpire,
dealt with situations of religious pluralismthrough explicit legal definitions of the
meaning of religion, giving rise to some of the same effects on religion as are noted
in this paper. In SoutheastAsia religious pluralismwas a fact from the beginning of
human navigation as it found itself a crossroadsfor emissaries from many religious
138
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
centers. Yet the modern situation can be distinguished,I think, by its insistence on
moving toward a complete disestablishmentof religion.
4 A notable
exception is Sidney E. Mead, The Lively Experiment: The Shaping
America (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). See also, Robert
in
Christianity
of
Wuthnow,The Restructuringof AmericanReligion (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press, 1988); N.J. Demerath,III and Rhys H. Williams, A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992); and WinnifredFallers Sullivan, Paying the WordsExtra: Religious Discourse
in the Supreme Court of the United States (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Center
for the Study of WorldReligions, 1994).
With respect to religion and law in India see, for example, Marc Galanter,Law
and Society in Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989) and Gerald
James Larson, India's Agony Over Religion: (New York: State University of New
York Press, 1995).
5 Each of these articles was
presentedorally initially at the Annual Meeting of
the American Academy of Religion in Chicago, 20 November 1994.
6 Smith, To TakePlace: TowardTheoryin Ritual (Chicago: Universityof Chicago
Press, 1987). See also, Tod D. Swanson, "ToPreparea Place: JohannineChristianity
and the Collapse of Ethnic Territory,"in Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion, vol. LXII/2 (Summer 1994). Swanson suggests that this deracinationoccurred
at a much earlier point in Christianhistory, with the missions to the gentiles. He
too, though, is troubledby the effect of a loss of place on religion, particularlyits
pernicious effect on missionized peoples.
7 The Lively Experiment,pp. 103-133.
8 These new diasporado not take root in the ways earlier diasporadid because
of disestablishment.
9 One of the reasonsfor this
disparityis because academicdiscourseaboutreligion
is regardedby many as being aboutpre-modernpeople, whetherthey existed in earlier
centuriesor are still aroundtoday. Modernpeople are understoodto have successfully
compartmentalizedtheir religious life. Scholars,even scholarsof religion, thus work
with the same kind of double standardas Voltaire.Traditionalreligion is appropriate
for women and slaves. Male intellectuals have evolved beyond those needs and are
capable of an intellectualizedfaith.
10 This can be very destructiveof civil society. See my review of StephenCarter,
The Culture of Disbelief: "Diss-ing Religion: Is Religion Trivialized in American
Public Discourse?" in The Journal of Religion, vol. 75 (January1995), pp. 69-79.
CONFLICTS OF LAW:
RECONSIDERING THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON LAW
IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY
ELIZABETHDALE
Summary
The idea that there were different points of view in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay is not a new one. Several recent studies have underminedPerry
Miller's monolithic "PuritanMind"-demonstrating there were many strands of
thought even among the nominally orthodox, and suggesting that we think of the
settlers in New England as members of a movement with many ideas, ratherthan
holders of a single point of view.
While the idea that there were divisions within the category of Puritanis not a
new one, the extent to which that ideological pluralism had a practical impact on
the Bay colony's institutions,from its families to its governing system, has not yet
been explored. This paper is a preliminaryeffort to demonstratehow ideological
pluralismled to differentconceptions of law, and had a practicaleffect on the legal
system developed in the first generationof settlementin MassachusettsBay.
Fifty years ago, PerryMiller famously introducedhis study of the

people who settled MassachusettsBay in the early seventeenthcentury by noting that for his purposes it was "a matter of complete
indifferenceor chance that a quotationcomes from Cotton instead of
Hooker, Winthropinstead of Willard;all [those] writerswere in substantialagreement.. ."' Miller's conceit thatearly seventeenthcentury
puritanswere fungible narrowedhis understandingof their complex,
and often contradictoryideologies. While his interpretationhas been
debunkedby more recent histories of puritandoctrine, it lingers on
in the social histories which study institutions such as law in MassachusettsBay. Those studies continueto asserta monolithic"Puritan
mind"that shapeda legal system which was predominantlymoralistic
in purpose.2As one study put it the "functionof law was to provide
moral instruction.. ."3
NUMEN, Vol. 43
140
ElizabethDale
This article-which is part of my larger study of law in the first

decades of settlement in MassachusettsBay-denies that a common
religious ideology led to a moralistic law in MassachusettsBay or
even that people in MassachusettsBay agreed about the function or
use of the law.4 My focus is on two cases and the discussions they
generated. The first involved a magistrate, the second a minister.
The trials were unrelated and occurred in different years. But the
discussions they generated bore a resemblance to each other. By
examining those discussions closely, we can begin to see the ideological differences and how they led to conflicting views of law and
its purpose.
The first case arose in Salem in 1634, after someone took a sword
and cut out part of the cross at the center of the town militia flag.
Although no one initially knew who did it, it was clear why the deed
was done-the sign of the cross in the middle of the flag called to
mind the pope (who had allegedly given the cross to the king of
England as a sign), and the problem of idolatryin general.5As John
Winthrop,the governorof the colony at the time put it, the cross was
"a superstitiousthing and a relic of the antichrist."6
It soon became apparentthat John Endecott, a magistrateand former governor of the colony, had defaced the flag. After a series of
debates involving both political and religious leaders, the colony's
combined legislative and judicial body, the GeneralCourt, appointed
a committee to consider the case. The committee concluded that Endecott acted "withoutdiscretion,taking upon himself more authority
than he had, and not seeking the advise of the court."7While that suggested his offense was judging where he had no right to do so, the
commission's second conclusion suggested, on the contrary,that the
problem with his action was it was "uncharitable."When he judged
the presence of the cross to be a sin, he "did content himself to have
it reformed in Salem, not taking care that [other towns] be brought
out of sin."8
The commission's thirdconclusion did little to reconcile these apparently contradictorypoints. It declared Endecott guilty of "laying
Conflicts of Law
141
blemish ... upon the magistrates,"by suggesting "they would suffer

idolatry."The scattershotnatureof these conclusions was reflectedby
the punishment imposed. Endecott was reprimandedand forbidden
to act as a magistratefor a year, but at the same time, all the militia
flags were changed so that none had crosses on them.9
The confusion this case generatedsuggested several areas of disagreement. Contemporaneouseffortsto interpretthe case reveal some
of the differences which caused that disagreement.
One point of view was offered by Thomas Hooker, a colonial
minister. He argued that there was no reason to remove the cross
from the flag. In the first place, he denied that the cross need mean
the same thing in MassachusettsBay in the seventeenthcentury,as it
had meant in CatholicEuropein the fourth. Thus, while admittingthe
EmperorConstantineand his followers had attributedgodlike powers
to the cross in theirflag, Hookerdenied that anyone in the Bay colony
could or would see the cross in a similarly idolatrous light. As he
put it, "[t]his superstitioususe [of the cross] ... was superadded,so
it may again be removedfrom the naturalor civil use hereof[,] being
For that reason, the cross should not be
only a separableadjunct."10
removed.
Examining that judgment reveals several of the assumptions underlying Hooker'sparticularideological perspective. One assumption
was that scripturalcommandsdid not apply at all times, or all places.
Rather,some commands applied to particularpeople, but not to others. Other commands applied only in particularplaces. As Hooker
put it in one sermon, the commands of the Old Testamentdid not
automaticallybind everyone who came after Christ.11
At one level, this reflected Hooker's particularsense of history
and his belief that even mattersof religion should be judged in their
specific historical contexts.12At another, it rested on assumptions
about the meaning of signs, or, to be more accurate, on Hooker's
recognition that signs might have multiple meanings, which human
reason could negotiate. Hooker accused those who did believe that
the cross retainedidolatrousmeaning of making errorsin judgment,
implying as he did so that properjudgment was both necessary and
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ElizabethDale
possible. In support of his argument, he noted that people made

similar distinctions in other circumstances, as when they failed to
attributehereticalmeaningto churches,coins having crosses on them,
or other religious symbols.13
His position on the flag was consistent with argumentsHooker
made in other contexts.14His understandingthat signs had more than
one possible meaning was also reflected in his use of metaphor,as,
for example, when he used the image of gold in his sermon on the
Carnal Hypocriteas both a symbol and an object, attributingdifferent
meanings to its different guises.15
While in each of these cases, Hooker assumed individuals were
capable of separatingsigns from their possible meanings, and were
able to evaluate them accordingly, he did not assume that all possessed this skill equally. For Hooker, only those who were saved
could understandwhen and how scriptureshould be applied to govern contemporarylife. As he put it in a sermonon Romans,the carnal
men were unable and unwilling to understandthe will of God, even
as expressed in those laws which God had written into the human
soul. They relied instead on failed human reason in its place.'6
While Hooker's response to the flag incident reflected the belief
that salvationbroughtwith it particularcapacitiesfor reasonedanalysis of signs, his assertionthat the scripturalprohibitionson idols did
not apply to the Salem flag implied something else as well. It suggested he felt humanjudges had the discretionto determinewhether
a scripturalcommandwas binding, or not. That he meant this is reinforced by a point he made in anothersermon.17There Hooker denied
that the laws of the Old Testamentautomaticallybound those who
lived after Christ, implying that human reason was able to decide
when, and to what extent, scripturallaws applied.
That capacity itself reflected proper,as opposed to carnal, use of
reason, and it was the capacity which enabled the saved to determine
what things were forbiddenby God's law and what things were not.
These two capacities, taken together, added up to discretion, which
Hooker defined as "the fitting of occurrencesfor the purpose of performance of any act."'8"Fitting"meant that an act had to be "lawful
Conflicts of Law
143
to be done, [and] the means holy used."19It also meantthat the determination of what was lawful and holy had to be known to the actor
and consistent with his or her status.20
This emphasis on status points to a seeming inconsistency in
Hooker's position in the flag case. Endecott was, after all, a magistrate and a sincere Christian.Given Hooker'semphasis on status and
Christianunderstanding,one might reasonably assume that Hooker
would conclude that Endecott had the authorityto judge the propriety of having the cross in the flag, and the power to act upon that
judgment.
That was not, however,the position Hookertook. He opposed Endecott's act for a thirdreason, which he articulatedin other contexts.
In a sermon given in 1626 on the anniversaryof the GunpowderPlot,
Hooker noted that the king was "anointedof the Lord."21That meant
that because the king was chosen by God, it was not only a crime,
it was a sin to kill or otherwise act against a king.22These passages
demonstratethat Hookerfelt rulerswere entitled to special respect as
God's agents on earth, and that he probablyalso opposed the attack
on the flag as a challenge to the authorityof the king, whose symbol
the flag was.
There is, to be sure, some evidence that Hooker did not always
favor deference to the king. While Hooker's argumentin that 1626
sermon suggested thathe felt JamesI was chosen by God, his remarks
in a sermon given in 1630 made it clear his feelings for Charles I
were less positive. There, he described the punishmentGod would
surely wreak on Englandfor her sins, and noted "[s]ome might object
that kings or monarchsare exemptedfrom fear that God will torment
them."23But, Hooker went on, kings "arenot exempt."24Indeed, they
could not be. Ultimately, they were subject to God's will because
God was king of the whole world.25
In the end, those two sermons can be reconciled by reading the
1630 sermon as resting on the assumptionthat it was up to God, not
humanity, to punish those kings who failed. It was not, therefore,
for Christiansto refuse to obey a bad king or to dishonor his flag.26
Here, Hooker drew a distinction between the civil and the religious
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ElizabethDale
realm and the result of that distinction was to ban challenges to the
duly appointedruler.27
Thus, Hooker's rejection of Endecott's attack on the flag revealed
several aspects of his particularreligious ideology. In part,it reflected
his rejection of the idea that scripturalcommands were laws which
unquestionablybound humanity. That conviction, in turn, rested on
his vision of human nature, and his belief that properly instructed
(i.e., Christian)understandingwas capable of determiningwhere and
when scriptureapplied. But at the same time, his view of human
understandingwas limited, and in the flag case trumped,by Hooker's
assumptionthatGod's authorityto chose andpunishrulersbe deferred
to.
John Cotton, anotherminister in MassachusettsBay, agreed with
Hooker that God's authorityhad to be deferredto. But while Cotton
agreed with Hooker on that principle, he disagreed on how that deference should be manifested, and what that meant in the flag case.
In contrastto Hooker, John Cotton believed that the cross should be
removed from the flag.28For Cotton, the problem was that the presence of the cross in the flag violated the biblical injunctions which
forbade any use of idols, and so underminedGod's authority.
Because we have no clear statementsof Cotton's position, we have
to reconstructhis point of view.29Assuming that his argumentin the
flag case was consistent with his other writings, Cotton's concern
was that humans lacked the capacity and the authorityto interpret
the laws laid down in scripture.30That meant that he did not believe
that they could ignore scripturalcommandsfor any reason.
Cotton made his clearest statementof this view in his Exposition
Upon the ThirteenthChapter of the Revelation, where he accused
the Roman Catholic churchof assuming the power to "dispensewith
scripture,"make laws which replacedthe laws of God, and overthrow
the civil authorityat will. According to Cotton, that church became
the beast of Revelation when it took this course, because in so doing
it claimed the authorityto understandand set itself above God.31
In Cotton's view, the RomanCatholicChurchusurpedGod's power
by exalting human understanding.That led the church to substitute
Conflicts of Law
145
its own views of what was correct for those set out in scripture.32
Significantly, in light of Cotton's rejection of human understanding,
his chief objection to the church's assertionof that power was that it
meant the church denied that its interpretationmight err.33
This failing was not unique to the Catholic Church. Rather, it
was one that it shared with many individualChristians(including, it
seems, Thomas Hooker). As Cotton noted in the Exposition, the nature of the Catholic Churchin its role as the beast, "serve[d]to teach
us the dangerof allowing to any mortalman an inordinatemeasureof
power to speak great things, to allow to any man uncontrollableness
of speech."34The claim to speak with authorityrested on a claimed
capacity to understandGod, one which was completely inconsistent
with the limits of human understanding.
The Church'sclaimed capacity to understandscriptureand God's
will was not its only failing. Equally offensive was its assertionthat
it had the authority to make laws replacing the laws of God. In
the Exposition, Cotton made it clear that this rested on the Church's
arrogantbelief that it could understandGod's will and definitively
interpretscripture. For Cotton, such claims were both beyond the
capacity of the church and of individuals. As he noted in other contexts, even saints could never understandany laws of God, or assert
the right to rule by virtue of their sainthooduntil resurrection.When
that resurrection-described in the twentiethchapterof Revelationsoccurred,the saints would rule with Christfor a thousandyears. Then
and only then would the saints' understandingof God be increased
so that they could administerspiritualordinancesand censures with
confidence.35And just to make sure that everyone was clear on this
point, Cotton asserted that resurrectionhad not arrived.36
His conclusion-that even godly magistrateswould be unable to
apply God's law perfectly-was consistentwith his repeatedassertion
that even the saints were capable of sin, precisely because they were
unable to understandand comply with the laws of God.37This distrust
of human understandingmeant Cotton believed the cross had to be
removed from the flag. Because people could never be sure they
understoodGod's will, they had to follow the most obvious statements
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ElizabethDale
of that will, which were found in scripture,and hope that they acted
properly. So long as scriptureappearedto prohibitidolatroususe of
the cross, people certainly could neither place nor keep a cross in
the flag. Doing so was comparableto the Roman Catholic Church's
assertionthat it could decide what the law was, and when it applied.
As this suggests, Cotton rejected Hooker's trust in human reason,
and his belief in the historical contingency of scripture. Cotton also
disagreed with Hooker about the ultimate outcome in the cross case.
In contrast to Hooker, Cotton tried to maintain God's authorityby
limiting human authorityto interpretscripture.
However,by takingthe position thathumanlimitationsmeantwhile
people could never interpretscripture accurately, they still had to
apply the laws set down by God in scripture,Cotton boxed himself
into a position that createdhumanauthorityeven as it denied it. For,
in the end, in order to maintaindivine authority,Cotton had to give
the power to judge and apply scripturalcommandsto humanjudges.
He also had to pretendthat those commands were clear.
In this, Cotton's position became very much like that of John
Winthrop. Winthrop also apparentlybelieved the cross should be
removed from the flag.38Like Cotton, Winthropgroundedthat conclusion on scripturalprohibitions. But while Winthrop'sconclusion
resembled Cotton's, it rested on a very different assumption. Where
Cotton distrustedhumanreason, and sought to maintainthe authority
of God by limiting human authority,Winthrop,like Hooker, relied
on human reason to determinehis position in the flag case.39Since
scriptureclearly prohibitedidolatry,in Winthrop'sview items of an
idolatrousnature-such as the cross in the flag-were wrong.
Thus, Winthroprelied on humanunderstandingto reach a position
exactly opposed to Hooker's. The difference lay in their different
understandingof the applicabilityof scripture.Hooker believed that
human understandingcould determinewhethera particularscriptural
provision was appropriatein a particularpoint in time, and used that
belief to conclude that the cross need not be removed from the flag.
Winthroprejected that historically contingent perspective, asserting
Conflicts of Law
147
instead a transhistoricalsense of scriptureas a law which bound all

people for all time.
Those different takes on the flag incident rested on ideological
differences, disagreements about what the source of law was and
who could determinewhat it meant. The trial of John Wheelwright,
a minister,for sedition in 1637 raisedthese issues again, addingsome
new twists.40Wheelwrightwas convicted, but his sentencing was put
off in an effort to calm things down. During the period between his
conviction and sentencing, Wheelwright's supportersfiled petitions
with the magistrates,seeking to have his conviction overturned.
One petitionprovidesan idea of the argumentsmade on his behalf.41
Initially, it appearsto be a legalistic appeal to reason. It rested on
five argumentsand of those, the first two were what a modem day
lawyer would consider typical legal arguments. The first was that
Wheelwright'ssermon was not seditious because he sought precisely
the same thing as the magistrates-peace in the churches. The second was the related argumentthat his sermon could not have been
seditious because no one took a seditious act as a result of hearing
it. Wheelwright, so these argumentswent, neither intended to challenge authoritynor inspired such a challenge; as a matterof law, he
could not, therefore,be guilty of sedition.42While this appearsto be
a simple legal argument,the precedentsthe Petition cited in support
of the argumentwere all based on scripture.
Thus these firsttwo argumentssuggestedthathumanunderstanding
was able to reliably interpretscripture-if the judges simply thought
carefully they would reach the correctconclusion, and acquitWheelwright. In this respect, these argumentsresemble those associated
with Winthropand Hooker in the flag case, at least insofar as they
suggest that judges had a particularcapacity to interpretscripture
and judge.43However, like Winthropand in contrast to Hooker, the
argument apparentlyassumed that scripturealways applied as law.
Certainly,the Petition contained no discussion of whether the scriptural precedent was properly applied in that particularmoment in
history.
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ElizabethDale
While those first two argumentsrelied on scriptureand a faith in

the capacity of human understanding,subsequentargumentsmade it
clear that the anonymous authors of the Petition intended no such
thing. The third argument-that the judges should "rememberthat
old method of Satan"to stir up hostility to the prophets-began the
Petition's assaulton the authorityof humanunderstanding.There, the
suggestion that Wheelwright'sjudges resembled those who wrongly
judged Elijah, Amos, Christ and Paul, underminedthe authorityof
reason by asserting it could sometimes be distortedby Satan.44
This argumentmight be interpretedas a suggestion that historical
context governedthe applicabilityof scripturalprecedent,though that
interpretationseems inconsistent with the assertion that the judges
could not judge Wheelwrightbecause their capacity to do so might
be clouded. Such an interpretationwould also be inconsistentwith the
fact that the argumentitself rested on scripturalprecedent. Instead,
it seems to be an attack on judicial discretion on the grounds that
judicial judgment might be mistaken.
If the third argumentwas an attack on judicial discretion on the
groundsthatjudges might be fallible, the fourthwent further,claiming
that Wheelwright could never be judged because those who did so
judged Christ, whose servantWheelwrightwas. Here, the argument
did not rest on the possibility that the judges might be incompetent
to judge Wheelwright;rather,it rested on the assertionthat they were
incompetent to judge him, since they could never be competent to
judge God.45
It is importantto step back for a second and consider the moves the
anonymousauthorsof the Petition made to reach this point. The initial argumentwas a legalistic appealto scripturalprecedent,assuming
that humanunderstandingwas capable of determiningthe commands
of scripture.Having made thatpoint, the Petitionbegan to undermine
it almost immediately, asserting that Satanic interferencemade human understandingunreliable at times. And then, having suggested
that humanunderstandingmight be unreliable,the Petition made the
stronger claim that it was never reliable when called on to judge
servants of God. By the end of its fourth argument, the Petition
Conflicts of Law
149
completely supplantedjudicial authorityand human understanding.

In this respect, the fourth argumentresembledCotton's position that
human reason could never reliably interpretscripture.But while this
argumentresembled Cotton's, it actually went fartherthan Cotton.
Where he tried to preserve the authority of scripture, the Petition
underminedthat authority,as if by accident, by attackingjudges for
attemptingto interpretit as law.
The fifth, and final argument,initially seemed to be a step back
to argumentsbased on reason. That argumentbegan as an appeal
to the judges as the "nursingfathers"of the community. Here, the
"argument"appearedas an appeal for protection,and one which assumed that special understandingwould lead judges to protect the
community.
But while this seems to restoreboth judicial authorityand human
understanding,it did not end that way. After appealingto judges, as
nursing fathers, to protect the community,the petition ended:
"And thus we have made known our griefs and desires to your worships, and
leave them upon record with the Lord and with you, knowing that if we should
receive repulse with you, with the Lord we shall find grace."46
Here, at the end, the Petition denied judicial authority, explicitly

asserting that God, ratherthan any human, was the ultimatejudge.
The Petition, then, denied the authorityof scriptureto act as law,
and the authorityof humans to act as judges. The colonial ministry
drafted a response to this Petition, known as the Apology.47It concerned itself almost exclusively with the claim thatWheelwrightwas
improperlychargedwith-and convicted of-sedition and contempt.
It rested on the idea that humanunderstandingwas both capable and
authorizedto judge God's will, and was, therefore,as much an effort
to restore authorityto scriptureas it was to restore the authorityof
human reason.
The Apology made its points in two ways. First, responding to
the specific claim that Wheelwrighthad neitherintendedsedition nor
incited others to engage in it, the Apology arguedthat he had indeed
done both. Takinghis definitionof sedition from a variety of secular
150
ElizabethDale
sources the anonymous authorof the Apology asserted that sedition

was not simply a challenge to authority,ratherit occurredwhenever
people were riled up to oppose others.48
The Apology began with an appeal to civil and secular authority
for its definition of sedition, but was quick to demonstratethat these
interpretationswere consistent with scriptureas well. As an example
of sedition, the author cited the incident in Acts when Demetrius
denounced the apostles for attackingthe goddess Diana, causing the
people to rise up againstPaul. This, the Apology argued,was sedition
since it led one group in a society to oppose another.49Likewise,
it was sedition when Korah spoke out against Moses and Aaron,
arguing that they put themselves above the rest of the people in the
congregation. There, once again, sedition occurred because Korah
incited a split in the community.50
The Apology's argumentwas organizedso that scripturalpassages
confirmed what legal authority suggested-sedition occurred when
discord was producedamongst a people. The Apology's reliance on
secular and scripturalprecedent suggests an appeal to natural law.
But just as the Petition began with a legalistic argumentand then
changed ground,the focus of the Apology shifted quickly, and so did
its ground of authority.
The author of the Apology moved from a definition of sedition
based on a combinationof secular and scripturalsources, to a discussion of whether Wheelwrightproperlycould be judged at all. Doing
so, he rejected the argumentthat the magistrates erred in judging
Wheelwright because he spoke as a messenger of God. On the contrary,the Apology arguedthat scripturedemonstratedthere were two
instances when a messenger of God should be reprovedfor speaking:
one occurred when the messenger spoke evil ratherthan truth, and
the other when the messenger spoke truthat the wrong time.51
It was, the Apology suggested, the second problem which arose
in Wheelwright'scase.52Wheelwright,like all other servantsof God,
had an obligation to act seasonably, "for," as the Apology put it,
"if there be such a point in wisdom as men call discretion, religion
(which makes truly wise) does not deprivethe servantsof God of the
Conflicts of Law
151
right use thereof."53When he neglected to use his discretion to keep

from making scripturalargumentsthat he knew would cause dissent,
Wheelwrighthad failed to act wisely.
Here, the Apology ignored the claims of civil law entirely, and
regroundedthe argument about Wheelwright in biblical precedent
alone, in orderto reprimandWheelwrightfor using scripturethoughtlessly. This was an argumentthat scripturalprecedentscould not be
used at any time, but had to be used when circumstancescalled for
them, an argumentwhich resemblesthe historicallycontingenttheory
of scripturalprecedentHooker set out in his discussion of the cross
in the flag. Christianswere obliged to make properjudgments, and
the essence of discretion was that the force of a particularprecedent
depended on circumstance.
In response to the somewhat obscured antinomianismof the Petition, the Apology reassertedthe authorityof scripture. But it did
not give scripturethe authoritythat Cotton or Winthrophad given
it in the Endecott case. For while they both asserted (although for
different reasons) that scripturehad to be literally followed without
question, the Apology assertedthat people had to decide how to follow scripture, and could be punished for failing to make the right
choice.
The Petition was denied, and Wheelwrightbanishedfrom the community. Sometime after this occurred, another document was prepareddefendingthe decision to deny the Petition. This Statementdiffered vastly from the argumentsin the precedingdocuments. Where
they rested on religious argumentsand sources, it made only the
slightest bow in the direction of religion, and that nearly two thirds
of the way throughthe four page document. Then the authorasserted
that each person in the colony "gives an implicit consent to whatever
the major part shall establish, not being against religion or the weal
public. . ."54While this suggests thatthe acts of the governmenthad to
be measuredagainstthe demandsof religion, the documentcontained
no effort to engage in that sort of measurement.
Instead, its argumentswere completely inconsistent with such a
measurement.It groundits defense of the government'sdecision vis
152
ElizabethDale
a vis the Petition on the need for general order,the precedentialeffect

of past acts, and the obligations imposed on the people as a result of
their consent to live in the colony. Order,this argumenturged, was
a necessary aspect of any society. Reliance on past acts providedthe
means of maintainingorder, since people could determinewhat had
been done in the past and decide what to do in the future. These past
acts also established what obligations existed.
The Statement was concerned with defining the society in which
the petitioners, respondents,Wheelwright and the judges all found
themselves. The remarkablething was that it did so without reliance
on scripture. While the Petition, initially, and the Apology, to a
greaterextent, used scriptureas the precedentby which society and
Wheelwrighthad to be judged, the Statementdid nothing of the sort.
After paying lip service to scripture,it set up an alternativesystem
where past practice,or custom, acted as precedent. Just as the Petition
had ultimately supplantedthe authorityof scripture, the Statement
was a radical departurebecause of its view of a world where human
conduct took precedence over the commands of God.
Four years after Wheelwright'scase, in 1641, Thomas Lechford,
lawyer and former resident of Massachusetts Bay, denounced that
colony's legal system for its rejection of English law: "I fear," he
wrote, "it is not a little degree of pride and dangerousimprovidence
to slight all former laws of the church or state, cases of experience
and precedents,to go hammerout now accordingto severalexigences
upon pretense that the word of God is sufficientto rule us."55He admitted that the word of God could be "sufficient,if well understood."
But he denied the possibility that such understandingmight occur,
urging the colonists to "take heed ...,
despise not learning, nor the
worthy lawyers of either gown, lest you repenttoo late."56

Lechford's comments are typically understoodas the lament of a
lawyer in a society which did not respect the law he had been trained
to apply.57As this articlehas suggested,they reflectedmore thanmere
pique. They point to the problems raised by the cases considered in
this article: conflicts over whether it was possible to understandor
Conflicts of Law
153
build a legal system on scripture;confusion over precedent and its

sources; disagreementabout humannatureitself and the significance
of its limitations. To returnto Perry Miller, it matteredvery much
whether a reaction to a case was being made by John Winthropor
Thomas Hooker. While their comments may have sounded similar,
they not only found themselves on opposite sides of issues, they
reached their conclusions for differentreasons. So long as those disagreementscontinuedto exist, the result of these multiple ideologies
was a fluid, ratherthan a static, legal system in MassachusettsBay
which could do little to implementa single moral vision.
Clemson University
ELIZABETH
DALE
Departmentof History
Clemson, SC 29631, USA
1
Century(1939),ix.
PerryMiller,TheNewEnglandMind:TheSeventeenth
2 As several recent studies have argued. Philip Gura,A Glimpse of Sion's Glory
(1983); Stephen Foster, The Long Argument(1991). He relied on PatrickCollinson,
The ElizabethanPuritan Movement(1967). For an even more recent study making
essentially this point, see Janice Knight, Orthodoxiesin Massachusetts: Re-Reading
Puritanism(1994).
3
EdgarMcMannus,Lawand Libertyin EarlyNew England:CriminalJustice
and Due Process (1993), p. 38. For similar arguments,see Peter Charles Hoffer,
Law and People in Colonial America (1992), pp. 16-17; David Thomas Konig, Law
EssexCounty,1629-1692(1979),pp. 16-17;
and Societyin PuritanMassachusetts:
in EarlyMassachusetts:
A Studyin Tradition
GeorgeM. Haskins,LawandAuthority
and Design (1960), esp. ch. 8-9.
4 Elizabeth Dale, "Debating-and Creating-Authority: A Legal History of the
Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 1967" (Ph.D. dissertation,University of Chicago, June
1995).
5 There were three forms of biblical
prohibitionagainst using the cross: general Deuteronomic teachings against idols, the specific commands of the Second
Commandment,and the examples supplied by stories in scripture.
6 JohnWinthrop,Winthrop's
Journal,or A Historyof New Englandfrom 1630
to 1649, Ed. James Kendall Hosmer, vol. 1 (1853), p. 137. The flag incident
is discussed in detail in Francis J. Bremer, "Endecottand the Red Cross: Puritan
Iconoclasm in the New World,"Journal of American Studies (Great Britain) 24
(1990), p. 1. Bremer also argues that the flag incident exposed divisions within
154
Elizabeth Dale
MassachusettsBay, but his focus is not on the legal significance of the debates over
the flag. We also disagree in some respects about how people responded to the
incident.
7
Winthrop,Journal, pp. 140-141, 147, 150-151.
8 Ibid., p. 151.
9 Ibid.,
pp. 150-151.
10 Thomas Hooker, "Touchingthe Cross in the Banner"(n.d.), in: Publications
of the MassachusettsHistorical Society, vol. 24 (1909), p. 275.
11 Thomas Hooker, Covenant Grace
of
Opened (1649), pp. 9, 10-11.
12 Hooker, "Touchingthe Cross,"p. 275.
3 Ibid., p. 276
14 E.g., Hooker, Covenantof Grace Opened,pp. 5-9 (arguingthat the sacraments
had a double significance), pp. 13-14 (noting that the covenantwas differentfor Jews
and Christians).
15 Thomas Hooker, The Carnal
Hypocrite, in: Thomas Hooker: Writings in
eds.
and
Holland, 1626-1633,
George Williams, Norman Pettit, Winfried
England
Bush
Jr.
97.
(1975), p.
Heigert, Sargent
16 Thomas Hooker, The Carnal Man's Condition
(1645), pp. 93, 120-124, 129.
17 Ibid., 9.
p.
18 See Hooker's reflections on discretion, set out in "Miscellanea,"transcribed
in Andrew T. Denholm, Thomas Hooker: 1586-1647 (Ph.D. dissertation,Hartford
Seminary, 1961), p. 372.
19 Ibid., p. 373.
20 Ibid.
21 Thomas Hooker, Church'sDeliverance (1626), in: ThomasHooker:

Writings
in England and Holland, 1626-1633, p. 69.
22 Ibid.,
pp. 69, 78.
23 Thomas Hooker,
Danger of Desertion, in: ThomasHooker: Writingsin England and Holland, 1626-1633, p. 243.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 248.
p.
26 Ibid.,
pp. 243, 244-245.
27 Cf. MartinLuther,"Admonitionto the Peace: A
Reply to the Twelve Articles
of the Peasants in Swabia,"in: Luther: Selected Political Writings,ed. J. M. Porter,
trans. Charles M. Jones and Robert C. Schultz (1974), pp. 74-75. See generally
the discussions in P.D.L. Davis, "Moses and the Magistrates: A Study in the Rise
of ProtestantLegalism,"Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (April 1975), p. 149;
Noel Henning Mayfield, Puritans and Regicides: Presbyterian and Independent
Differences over the Trial and Executionof Charles (I) Stuart (1988).
28 Bremer, 17.
p.
Conflicts of Law
155
29 There is a
summaryof an anonymous argumentoffered in opposition to the
cross in the HarleianManuscripts."The Ensign at Salem,"HarleianManuscriptno

4888, folio 86, reprintedin Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
vol. 42 (1909), p. 268. Bremer suggests that this argumentreflected Cotton's point
of view. Bremer,p. 17. While that may be true, I preferto derive an understanding
of Cotton's position from other sources which he clearly wrote.
30 John Cotton, The Keys of the Kingdomof Heaven (London, 1644), in: Cotton
and Churchesof New England, ed. LarzerZiff (1968), pp. 114-115, 152-155; John
Cotton, Covenantof God's Free Grace (1644), pp. 8-9.
31 John Cotton,An
Expositionon the ThirteenthChapterof Revelations(London,
49-59.
1655), pp. 23,
32 Ibid.,
pp. 49-53.
33 Ibid., 65.
p.
34 Ibid., p. 71.
35 John Cotton, The ChurchesResurrectionor the Openingof the Fifth and Sixth
Versesof the 20th Chapterof the Revelation (1644), pp. 10-11.
36 Ibid., pp. 18-20.
37 E.g., Cotton, Covenantof God's Free Grace, p. 13.
38
Winthrop,Journal, 1: 137.
39 John Winthrop,"ArbitraryGovernment,"Life and Letters of John Winthrop,
ed. Robert C. Winthrop,vol. 2 (1869), p. 446.
40 For the record of Wheelwright's conviction for contempt and sedition, see
the Records of the General Court of MassachusettsBay, in MassachusettsColonial
Records, vol. 1, p. 189.
41 "A Petition re
Wheelwright, 1637," in: The HutchinsonPapers, collected by
Thomas Hutchinson,reprintedin Publications of the Prince Society, vol. 1 (1865),
p. 72.
42 Ibid., pp. 72-73.
43 This resemblanceis quite ironic, since both Winthropand Hookerwere opposed
to Wheelwright, and favored his conviction.
44 "Petition," 73.
p.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., p. 74.
47 A Brief Apology in Defense of the General Proceedingsof the Court, holden
in Boston the ninth day of the first month, 1636...." in: David D. Hall (ed.), The
Antinomian Controversy,1636-1638: A DocumentaryHistory (Chapel Hill: Duke
University Press, 1990), p. 292.
48 Ibid., p. 292, citing Servetus and other canon lawyers for support.
49 Apology, p. 292, citing Acts 19: 24-36.
50 Ibid.
156
Elizabeth Dale
51
Apology, pp. 295-296, citing Isaiah 50: 40, Acts 21: 24, Matt 9: 16-17.
52
Apology, p. 297, but see ibid., p. 298 (suggesting that it was possible that he
had not spoken truthat all).
53 Ibid., p. 296.
54 "Statement,"in HutchinsonPapers, p. 76.
55 Thomas Lechford,Plain
Dealing or Newsfrom New England (London, 1642),
New
in
The
Library
of
England History, ed. J. HammondTrumball,vol. 4
reprinted
(1877), pp. 67-68.
56 Ibid.
57 A lament made somewhatironic in Lechford'scase since he had been censured

in MassachusettsBay for inappropriatelycontactinga jury deciding a case concerning
a client of his. Mass Col. Rec. 1: 270.
AT THE BOUNDARIES OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: NATIVE

AMERICAN RELIGIONS AND AMERICAN LEGAL CULTURE
SUSAN STAIGER GOODING
Summary
This essay looks briefly at legal discourses about Native American religions in
the late 19th and late 20th centuries,juxtaposingthem in orderto view the historical
trends they represent-the role played by legal discourse in transformingNative
American ceremonial practices and the role played by Native American religious
discourses in transformingthe law.
The first section argues that the opposition between religious tolerance and intolerance cannot account for the historicaltransformationswroughtin Native America. Rather than religious oppression in any simple sense, late 19th century legal
discourse was one force in the colonization of the ceremonial heritage of Native
America. Developments in two areas of legal discourse that have evolved on the
basis of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 are the focus of the
second half of this essay. If litigation on the basis of AIRFA has provided little
foundationfor decolonizing Native Americanreligions, the evolution of AIRFA into
the Native American CulturalProtectionand Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1994
is an exemplary instance of the transformationof legal discourse and an invigoration of democratic proceduresand definitions of collective interests in the US. It is
argued that Native American rights discourse about religious practices is providing
alternativeframeworksthat can and should significantlyorient scholarshipof Native
America.
Like the miner's canary,the Indian marksthe shift from fresh air to poison gas
in our political atmosphere;and our treatmentof Indians, even more than our
treatmentof other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democraticfaith.
Felix S. Cohen
as quoted in "Discriminationand Native AmericanReligious Rights"l
The following fact can no longer be denied: the creative life of native peoples,
from sea to shining sea, is the foundationof American history.
Lawrence E. Sullivan
Introductionto Native AmericanReligions, North America Volume2
NUMEN, Vol. 43
158
Susan Staiger Gooding
Introduction: frameworks for interpretation
This essay attempts to build on the insights of these two great

scholars-Felix Cohen, the legal scholarand "fatherof federal Indian
law,"and LawrenceSullivan, the encyclopedic and graceful historian
of religion-with regard to "Native America,"which is no less an
imagined and located social-historicalplace than is "America."I attempt to build on their sharedclaim that, althoughNative American
communities may mark boundariesof social, political, and cultural
difference in the US, the histories of these communities are neither
"other"to nor on the peripheryof Americanhistory,but at its heart.
I also attempt to build on the present tense and the dynamic sense
of agency with which Cohen and especially Sullivan speak of Native
Americans-a dynamic presenttense too often missing in the historical frameworksgiven voice in scholarship. The relationshipbetween
religion and the law in Native America is an ideal subject through
which to view this historicaldynamismand to evaluatecontemporary
scholarly and legal frameworksfor interpretation.
With regard to religion it is painfully clear that non-Indian intentions to tolerate the differences representedby Native Americans
have had no necessary relationshipto the harsh realities of their histories. Both friends and foes of Indians have sought to dismember
the ceremonial basis of indigenous communities through legal and
other means. In this sense legal discourse about Native American
religions is characteristicof US policies toward Native Americans
more generally. As Robert Berkhoferhas argued:
Although the specific goals of missionaries and military officers, of philanthropists and politicians have often conflicted, these diverse White officials and
policy makersagreedupon the basic natureof the Indian,and thereforetheirpolicies, if not their aims, were usually compatible in the larger sense. (Berkhofer
1978, p. 113, emphasis mine.)
Vine Deloria Jr., Standing Rock Sioux, sees this same pattern,or
"largersense," emerging in scholarshipabout Native America. Deloria Jr. claims that scholars of all political and disciplinaryilks commonly utilize this only-apparently-oppositionalframework implicit
At the Boundaries of Religious Identity
159
in US legal discourse about Native Americans as their point of departure. He argues, "much of what passes for history dealing with
Indians and whites is a mythological treatmentof the development
of policy disguised as history"(Deloria Jr., 1987, p. 85). Pointedly
echoing BerkhoferDeloria Jr. continues
In many respects the writing that most needs revision is that which seems to
favor Indians. It is not inaccurate,it is simply too generalizedand tends to mislead Indians into adopting liberal myths instead of conservativemyths. [Such]
generalizations... seem favorablyinclined towardIndiansbut actuallyhave negative implicationswhen they are seen within the context of contemporaryIndian
life. (Ibid., pp. 85-86.)
One task for contemporaryscholars of Native America, therefore,

is to take account of legal discourse as an historical force, without
taking it as our frameworkfor understanding.3Such is certainly the
case with Native Americanreligions. In fact, amongthe Indianscholars I read and the tribal members with whom I work there is a kind
of double-voicing with regardto religion. While there is agreement
that the struggle for religious rights is among the most important
issues in Indian Country today, there is also an insistence that the
very concept "religion"is a colonial construct. Thus, in contrastto
work that focuses on the opposition between religious tolerance and
intolerance-the dominantopposition in both legal policy and scholarship about the history of Native American religions-I locate the
history of legal discourses of Native Americanreligious rights in the
frameworkof colonizing and decolonizing discourses.
This essay looks briefly at legal discourses aboutNative American
religions in the late 19th and late 20th centuries,juxtaposingthem in
orderto view the historicaltrendsthey represent-the role played by
the law in transformingNative American religious and ceremonial
practices and the role played by Native American rights discourse
about religion and ceremony in transformingthe law. I argue that
Native Americanreligious rightsdiscourseis makinga contributionof
immeasurablevalue to the developmentof American legal discourse
and, in turn, to the vitality and viability of the American public
sphere.4
160
1. The "passing" of traditions

Before the late 19th century,religion was only indirectlythe concern of American legal discourses relating to Indians despite the
ubiquity of colonial takings that were justified with the claim that
indigenous communities were heathen and without any form of religion. Before treaty making was suspended by Congress in 1871
discussions of religion in early US legal discourse were limited to
clauses of negotiated treaties through which indigenous leaders expressed their willingness to accept visits from Christianmissionaries
(Deloria Jr. 1992a, pp. 13-14), and to those clauses specifying sacred
sites or places to which particularindigenous communities reserved
rights. In fact, it was afterover 200 years of such visits from missionaries, and after many indigenous people had incorporatedChristian
tenets and practices into their religious and culturalways of life, that
the religion of Indians itself became the object of US legal policy
and a focus of other Americanpublic discourse.
The discontinuationof treaty negotiations and treaty making represented an entirely new course taken by the federal government.By
contrastto the dubious yet negotiatedformatof treatymaking the legal policies of the late 19th century set out to make policy for, rather
than with, Indians. No longer concernedexclusively with moving indigenous communitiesen masse on to reservations,yet still extremely
concernedto limit the movementof these communitiesand to control
the bodies and minds of their members, the federal governmentset
out to invade every dimension of their internal and domestic lives.
Policies aboutreligion were at the core of this invasion. The first such
policy was promulgatedunder PresidentUS Grant'sso-called peace
policy, when in 1869 Indian agencies began being assigned to various religious denominations.Between 1869 and 1872 all of the then
recognized Indian Tribes were apportionedamong the 13 Christian
denominationsrecognized by the federal government,and Christian
boardingschools for Native Americanchildrenwere institutionalized
on a national scale (Annual Report,Commissionerof Indian Affairs,
Francis Walker. House Executive Doc. no. 1, 42nd Congress, 3rd
sess., serial 1560, pp. 460-462, see Prucha 1990, pp. 141-143).
161
Within 10 years it became obvious that it was neither the acceptance of Christianbeliefs by Indiansnor the beliefs of Indians at all
that were of concern to representativesof the US, but the eradication of indigenous ceremonial practices. In 1883, at the request of
Secretary of the Interior,Henry M. Teller, so-called Courts of Indian Offenses were institutedon all Indianreservationsto ensure the
discontinuationof what he regarded"as a great hindranceto the civilization of the Indians, viz, the continuance of the old heathenish
dances, such as the sun-dance, scalp-dance, etc." (Annual Report
of the Secretary of the Interior. House Executive Doc. no. 1, 48th
Cong., 1st sess., serial 2190, pp. x-xiii as quoted in Prucha 1990,
p. 160). The list of Native American practices prohibitedby these
federal regulationssuggests this policy was aimed not at the beliefs
of Indianpeoples but at the networksof social and political relations
producedin the context of indigenous ceremonialpractices.
The list of indigenous practices prohibitedby federal regulations
promulgatedin 1883, 1892, and again in 1904 included: 1) all dances
and "any similar feast," 2) all plural or polygamous marriagesand
those not "solemnized"by an appointedjudge, 3) all practices of
medicine men and the preventionof Indian children from attending
religious schools, 4) the destruction,injury,taking or carryingaway
of any personal propertywithout reference to its value, particularly
in the case of the death of an Indian,5) immortality,particularlythe
exchange of gifts between families when negotiatingmarriages,6) intoxication and, 7) the failureto "adopthabitsof industry,or to engage
in civilized pursuitsor employments"(distilled from 1892 "Rulesfor
Indian Courts,"House Executive Doc. no. 1, 52d Cong., 2nd sess.,
serial 3088, pp. 28-31 as quoted in Prucha1990, pp. 186-89).5 These
offenses were punished by fines, withholding food rations, and imprisonment.These were not referredto as elements of Indianreligions
per se. Nevertheless, with the exception of "intoxication"and "the
failure to adopt habits of industry"this list of offenses designates
ceremonial and symbolic practices that were so ubiquitousas means
of mediating and negotiating social relations and identity in and between indigenous communities that they could form one of the first
162
policies writtenfor all Indianpeople. As PatriciaLimerickhas stated,

"The campaign against Indian religions was, at its core, a campaign
against the Indianfamily,"against the intergenerationaland extended
kinship relations that "knittribal societies together"(Limerick 1993,
p. 11).6
The suppressionof Indian religions in the late 19th century does

not strictly signify intoleranceon the partof reformersof the likes of
IndianCommissionerHenry M. Teller. Those self-proclaimedtolerators of the late 19th century,the self-named "Friendsof the Indians,"
agitated for the discontinuance of Indian religious and ceremonial
practices as well. These philanthropists,who were extensively consulted by the federal governmentin its policy making throughoutthe
second half of the 19th century,feared the only precautionthat could
be taken against the total disappearanceof "the Indian"was a course
of rapidand forced assimilation. For these reformersas well, religion
formed a key foundationfor Indian resistanceto assimilation. Thus,
despite their declared sympathywith and tolerance for "the Indian,"
it was not merely the acceptanceof Christianityand the principles of
civilization by Indians that was essential, but the discontinuanceof
traditionalceremonialpractices.7
Beyond the context of this oppressivelegal discourse anothershift
was takingplace in the US in the late 19th century-the emergenceof
a new kind of publicity with regardto Indianreligions. From Edward
S. Curtis'sphotographicshowings, to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show,
to the 1893 ColumbianExposition, the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair,
and city and county fairs held annually across the United States,
the display of indigenous Americansproliferatedand their otherwise
legally prohibitedceremonialpractices were embracedas an integral
part of the heritage of America.8As EdwardS. Curtis put it:
The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition,
some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other, consequently the information that is to be gathered, for the benefit of future generations, respecting
the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind,must be collected at once
or the opportunitywill be lost for all time (as quoted in Graybill and Boesen
1986, p. 2).
163
Presumingas he does the passing from history of Indians, at least

those who were bearers of authentictraditionsand rites, the future
generations Curtis speaks of as the beneficiaries of this collection
were clearly non-Indian. Thus, just as the passing of traditionwas
being outlawedamongIndians,its passing to the Americanpublic was
pursued with a penchant. It remainedunremarkedin all corers of
the public sphere that it was largely the legal prohibitionof intergenerationalpassing among Indiansthat lent anyjustificationwhatsoever
to the project of alienating, for the sake of posterity,the sacred and
ceremonial rites, the ceremonialobjects, and the very remainsof the
departed ancestors of indigenous communities that ensued over the
next century (see especially American Indian Cultureand Research
Journal 16, no. 2, 1992).
Alienated from the social context in which such ceremonial rites
and objects took on meaning, these practices were colonized and
resignified against other social-symbolic frameworks. In addition
to being commodified within the "free market,"in the context of
publically-fundedmuseums and universitiesthis ceremonial heritage
was measured, sorted, classified, and explained against any number
of theories and definitionsof religion, often becoming the fodder for
what Gerald Vizenor has characterizedas "autisticmonologues with
science"(Vizenor1989, p. 198).9 Re-presentedto the public through
the mediation of scholars, these objects were largely described as
part of religious systems of belief rather than ceremonial ways of
life. Any departureon the part of real indigenous individuals from
such fixed systems stood as a sign of the passing of their authenticity as "Indians."In museums and universities ceremonial objects
and others media have been largely overdeterminedthroughcompeting narrativetheories of religion that are framed in such racial and
socio-evolutionaryterms.
We cannot, then, take the legal discourse of the late 19th century
at face value for, retrospectively,we see that Indian traditionswere
not prohibited,they were merely prohibitedfor Indians. What was
shared by non-Indiansof the time was not an intoleranceof Indian
religious beliefs, but a culture under whose gaze indigenous people
164
could only take on meaning with reference to a racial typology and

a socio-evolutionaryframeworkfor interpretation. Legal discourse
acted as only one force in the more general decontextualizationof
indigenous ceremonies. The struggle facing indigenous communities in the wake of this violent alienation was more complex than
the struggle to pass on and perpetuatetheir religions. It was and is
also a struggle to recontextualizethat which has been colonized under the term "religion"and to redefine the relationshipbetween the
ceremonial and other aspects of community life.
If the explicit intention of late 19th century prohibitions cannot
be taken at face value, the effects of these prohibitionscannot either.
Despite the concertedefforts of legal reformers;the disruption,illness
and violent treatmentthat ensued; and the alienationof a vast portion
of the great ceremonial heritage of indigenous communities, American prohibitionsof Indian religious and culturalpractices failed. In
addition to continuing to practice their traditionsin secrecy and in
the context of public performancesso eagerly consumed by Americans, and by contrast to the socio-evolutionaryframeworkthrough
which many scholars overdeterminedindigenous traditions as religions, "MostIndiansdid not see any conflict between their old beliefs
and the new religions of the white man and, consequently,a surprising
numberof people participatedin these ancientritualswhile maintaining membershipin a Christiandenomination"(Deloria 1991, p. 1).
A second, quite differentif relatedchange was ultimatelywrought
by the legal discourse prohibitingIndianreligions. Coupled with educationalpolicies throughwhich Indianchildrenwere schooled under
the tutelage of the proponentsof Christiandenominationsand, later,
state representatives,Indian children were educated in the English
language, in the concept of the right of law, and in the notion of the
progress of civilization. Ultimately, the prohibitionof religion was
also a painfully-won orientationto the discourse of rights; an education that provided the tools and a frameworkfor the articulationof
religious and other rights discourses. Although in 1924 all Indians
were grantedcitizenship (43 Stat. 253), thus becoming AmericanIndians, and in 1934 the prohibitionsagainst Native American Indian
165
religious practices were effectively negated under the Indian Reorganization Act (25 U.S.C.A. 461) whose stated intention was to roll
back the failed policies of assimilation,it was not until Native Americans themselves actively took up the discourse of religious rights in
legal forums in the 1950s and 60s that these colonial trendsbegan to
shift. This activism by elders and other community leaders resulted
in the AmericanIndianReligious FreedomAct (AIRFA),Public Law
95-341, a First Amendment for indigenous Americans, which was
passed by Congress in 1978.10
2a. Litigation and defining "religion"as a frameworkfor
decolonization
In addition to an express statementof policy
to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right to believe,
express, and exercise the traditionalreligions of the American Indian, Eskimo,
Aleut, and Native Hawaiians,includingbut not limited to access to sites, use and
possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials
and traditionalrites (as quoted in Prucha 1990, pp. 288-289)
the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 recommended

reforms be undertakenby numerous federal agencies that were increasingly invoking regulatorylaws having nothing to do with religion-environmental, immigration,and prison regulations-to limit
Native American religious and ceremonial rights in the 1960s and
70s.11Few of these recommendationswere put into effect as federal
agencies waited for the courts to act, to see what the actual status of
AIRFA would be.
On the basis of AIRFA tribes and individualsbrought dozens of
cases before the lower federalcourtsin the late 1970s and early 1980s
seeking protection of their religious rights. The lower courts varied
in their interpretationsof the status of the act and religious rights
more generally.12Three quartersof the cases brought by tribes or
individuals-including religious rights to gather and possess animal
parts and eagle feathers, the rights of prisoners to wear long hair
and headbands and to participatein ceremonies in federal prisons,
166
the rights of membersof the Native AmericanChurchto use peyote,

and the rights of numerous tribes to utilize and participatein the
managementof places sacredto them-were lost in the lower courts.
All of the cases concerningsacredplaces were lost. Across the board
Native Americans found little protectionunder AIRFA.
The interpretivequagmirein the lower courts culminatedin 1988
and 1990 with two cases heard before the US SupremeCourt.13The
1988 Supreme Court opinion in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association gutted the American Indian Religious
Freedom Act. In Lyng (1988) the Supreme Court upheld the right
of the US Forest Service to complete constructionof a Forest Service road in the Six Rivers National Forest in northernCalifornia
despite their acknowledgmentthat sites sacred to the Yurok, Karok,
and Tolowa would be destroyed. Lyng (1988) ended the question
as to whether AIRFA would provide Native Americans any statutory
protection with the Court declaring that AIRFA ultimately protected
Native Americans only from punishmentfor or forceable violations
of their religious beliefs (Echo-Hawk 1993, p. 43). Ironically,given
all that was at stake in this case and the scope of what was lost, the
Forest Service never completed its road in the Six Rivers National
Forest.
In 1990, in EmploymentDiv., Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, the Supreme Court addressed the religious rights of
members of the Native American Church under the First Amendment. The conflict addressedby the Court in Smith (1990) resulted
when the State of Oregon fired two Native American employees for
their participationin the peyote ceremony of the Native American
Church. The Court found in favor of the State of Oregon despite the
fact that the ceremonial use of peyote was acknowledged as having
had no effect on the employees' work performance. As has been
widely noted, the majorityopinion in Smith (1990) went fartherthan
necessary in upholdingOregon'sclaim by attackingand undermining
the standardsof judicial review by which the religious rights of all
Americanshad been interpretedand protected. The three-parttest developed by the SupremeCourt in Sherbertv. Verner(1963) whereby
167
courts have evaluated whether religious practices can be limited by

the state includes: 1) proof that a claim is religious and that the religious practice at issue is central and indispensibleto that religion,
2) proof that the state limitationis burdensometo the religious practice, and 3) proof that there is some compelling interest that merits
the state's burdenon that religious practice. Among other things, in
Smith (1990) the Supreme Court set aside the "compelling interest
test" altogether.
Realizing that Smith (1990) effectively nullified the constitutional
basis whereby the religious rights of all Americans are protected,
Native American activists and scholars of Native America were immediatelyjoined by a broadalliance of religious groups, and in 1993
the Religious Freedom RestorationAct (Public Law 103-141) was
passed by Congress, explicitly restoringthe compelling interesttest.
However, while the compelling interest test may be necessary, it is
not necessarily sufficient;it effectively begs the question of religious
rights, at least those of Native Americans who have repeatedlylost
cases in which their religious rights have been litigated under this
rule. For, ratherthan placing the onus on the federal governmentto
prove a compelling interest,in religious rights cases in federal Indian
law the courts have generally emphasized the first of the three part
balancingtest, therebyplacing the onus on the Native Americanindividuals or groups to prove that any given religious practice or belief
is "centraland indispensible"to their religion.
Before exploring the compelling interest test further,I would like
to turn briefly to the responses of scholars to this 20 years of litigation. Their responses and emphases have varied, but all have agreed
that the concept of religion and the interpretivestandardby which
courts requireproof that a religious practice or belief is central and
indispensible is inadequatein the Native Americancontext. Scholars
have argued that the court's concept of religion is essentially Christian and that, in turn, currentjudicial standardsof review are inherently discriminatory,even a violation of the EstablishmentClause of
the Constitutionbecause, with regard to Native American religious
rights, there has been no separationof church and state. Growing
168
out of these criticisms and focusing largely on the courts' repeated

denials of rights to sacred places, scholars have begun to articulate
alternativedefinitionsof Native Americanreligions and a wider repertoire of analogies between Native Americanand Christianreligions.14
All have made the moral plea that Americansfulfill their history and
chosen destiny by extending tolerancetowardNative Americans.
Without minimizing the need for and importance of this work,
it must be noted that neither the courts' acknowledgement of the
centralityand indispensibilityof Native Americanreligious practices,
nor even their acceptance of analogies between Christianand tribal
practices have provided a solution to the problem of religious rights
in any strong sense, nor a model for religious tolerance in any sense
of the word. For, with very few exceptions, where courts have found
any given Native American religious claim to be salient, they have
nevertheless generally found against the religious claim under the
compelling interest test. In case after case some public interestthe public interest in penal security,the public interest in electricity,
the public interest in tourism, or the public interest in not being
burdenedby the religious practicesof a minority-has been found so
compelling as to outweigh the tribalor individualNative American's
religious right.'5As this list of public interestssuggests, the argument
thatChristianinterestsinformand are accomodatedby legal discourse
in the US doesn't sufficientlyexplain trendsin the litigationof Native
American religious rights.16
Additionally, as Deloria Jr. has pointed out, it is not always only
the rights of Native Americansthat are representedin the litigationof
theirreligious rights. ThoughLyng(1988), for example, was a case in
federal Indianlaw and was litigatedas a case concerninga site sacred
to Native Americans, the plaintiff in this case was an alliance that
included the three tribes for whom Chimney Rock in the Six Rivers
National Forest is a ceremonial site, six environmentalgroups, and
the State of California, all who had an interest in protecting these
public lands. The SupremeCourt'suse of the generalizedconcept of
"public interest"in finding against the plaintiff in this case cannot,
then, be read as a justificationof Christianbeliefs nor "white"values
169
in any clear sense. Rather,as Deloria Jr. forcefully argues, as a result

of Lyng (1988) all Americansmust face the reality
that governmentbureaucratsand employees deeply believe thatthe propertythey
are charged with managing belongs to them personally,and that any effort by
the public to participatein managementis a personalaffront. The more than 35
percentof the United States that is comprisedof public lands belongs, in theory
at least, to the public as a whole, not to federal employees and their favored
clientele (Deloria 1992, p. 287).
From this perspective,continuitiesand shifts in the relationshipbetween legal and other public discourses from the late 19th to the late
20th century come into view. Although less dramaticthan the late
19th century,when the movementand gatheringof indigenouspeople
for ceremonial purposes could stimulatea fear of such proportionin
the federal government that it could lead to the 1890 massacre of
Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, today spiritualpractices as mundane as wearing long hair and eagle feathers continue to represent
a danger of some sort to the federal government,its authority,and
the constitution of the body politic. It would appearthat in the late
20th century the control previouslyreservedfor Native Americansis
being exercised with regardto the values that the American public,
of which Native Americans are a part, is entitled to hold. Laws explicitly addressing religion are not needed to exercise this control;
any legal discourse relevantto the constitutionof the public domain
can be a medium for exerting authorityover religious and cultural
values, authoritythat may or may not representpublic consensus, but
is claimed in the name of the public nevertheless.
The applicationof the compelling interesttest in these cases also
reveals the limitationsof litigationas a form of discoursefor resolving
all such conflicts between religious and other interests. Litigation is
by its very definition an adversarialform of legal discourse in which
rights are not negotiated and/orheld in relation to one another. The
recognition of one right must ultimately result in the exclusion and
denial of other rights. In the context of litigation, the notion of a
balancing test seems either an ideal rarely attained or a misnomer.
The result of each of the cases cited above was not a limitation of
170
Native American religious rights in relation to state interests,but an

outrightexclusion of the plaintiffs' concerns as having any relevance
to the issue raised in the case whatsoever.
The 1980 decision in the lower courts in Badoni v. Higginson
illustrates the irrationalityof this adversarialform of legal rationality. Navajo religious leaders in this case requestedthat the National
Park Service prohibit alcohol consumption at the Rainbow Bridge
National Monument and periodically close the monument for their
limited ceremonial use. Rainbow Bridge is undoubtedly a central
sacred site for Navajos, which the court acknowledged. The Court,
nevertheless,found that the public interestsin electricity and tourism
outweighed Navajos' religious rights and that such an accommodation to the Navajos would violate the EstablishmentClause requiring
a separationbetween church and state. Whateveris at work behind
this constructedand grasping oppositional framing of rights, such a
mutually exclusive interpretationis obviously not what Navajos had
in mind. As Steven Moore has noted of sacred sites generally, "In
all but the most exceptional of circumstances Native groups have
never and will never seek exclusive use of a land area for religious
purposes"(Moore 1991, p. 97).
Deloria Jr.'s conclusion with regard to such framings of Native
American religious rights in litigation provides an appropriatetransition to currentlegislative developments. Of the Supreme Court's
decision in Lyng (1988) Deloria has said:
The most fruitful course of dealing with the US governmentnow seems to be
in negotiated settlements. In other words, what is requiredis a modernization
of the old diplomatic treaty relationshipbetween Washingtonand the various
Indian nations... To the extent that this materializes over the next few years,
and there is some indicationthat it will, Lyng may ultimatelybe rememberedas
a positive legal landmarkby Indian people, regardlessof the Supreme Court's
intent in renderingits decision in the case (Deloria Jr., 1992, p. 286).
2b. Recontextualizingreligion by redefininglegal discourse

Simultaneousto the litigation of Native American religious rights
under AIRFA have been ongoing regional hearings and negotiations
171
between Native Americanactivistsandelders and Congressionalmembers, in which the details of violations of Native Americanceremonial
practices and their as yet unmet religious and ceremonialneeds have
been discussed at length. The Native American CulturalProtection
and Free Exercise of Religion Act (NACPFERA),an omnibus bill
covering several areas of religious rights, was introducedin Congress
in 1994 and markeda culminationof these negotiations. NACPFERA
has since been subdivided into several separate pieces of legislation due to the problematicprocess of passing omnibus legislation
in Congress. As a whole, however, NACPFERAmarks a beginning
in the process of recontextualizingNative Americanreligions, on the
basis of which the outlines of the relationshipbetween Native American people and their ceremonialpracticesbegins to emerge and can
begin to be defined. In addition, the very process of definition is
itself explicitly addressedin the act, which develops a metadiscourse
regardingthe process by which religious, ceremonialand other rights
are to be defined in specific contexts in Native America. Rather
than a better definition of religion, NACPFERAbegins to spell out
a practical anatomy of tolerance which can form the basis for the
decolonization of Native Americanceremonialpractices.
Four areas of specific legal protectionare outlined under this legislation, each of which parallels the kinds of religious rights recently
litigated: Native Americanrights 1) to culturaland religious sites, 2)
to the ceremonial use of peyote, 3) to practice ceremonies and wear
long hair when serving a sentence in federal penitentiaries,and 4) to
the ceremonialuse of eagle feathersand otheranimalspartsor plants.
When these areas of protectionare seen in relationto one another,by
contrast to what each signifies in isolated argumentsin the context
of litigation, the outlines of Native America begin to emerge.
Each of these are rightsthatexceed the boundariesof Native AmerThe cultural
ican sovereignty and identity understoodterritorially.17
sacred sites
and
of
and
use
and religious
animals, peyote,
plants
all imply movement off of reservations,into the public domain, even
across internationalboundariesfor theircollection, transportation,and
use. Such is the case, for example, when pow wow dancerstransport
172
eagle feathers as part of their dance outfits across the Canadianor

Mexican borders. Pow wows themselves are not religious events, but
the adornmentof the body with eagle feathersand other animal parts
generally representsonly one moment in a long ceremonial series.
Each is generally given by someone in a network of kin and community relations signifying the spiritual aspect of any dancer, their
individual achievements, and the social and ceremonial context of
giving and receiving such objects. The transportationof dance outfits adornedwith animal and bird parts is only one of many reasons
that Native Americanshave been incessantly stopped and harassedat
internationalboundaries.18
A deterritorializationof Native American religious rights is also
seen in the fourthdesignatedarea of protection,the protectionof the
ceremonial rights of prisoners. Rather than reject, neglect, or vilify
Native American prisoners because of their location beyond tribal
communities and on the boundaries of society, the religious needs
of prisonersare centralto the evolution of Native Americanreligious
rights discourse. This is not surprisingin Native Americancommunities where the criminalizationof so many everyday,ceremonial, and
culturalpracticesthat "knitNative Americansocieties together"have
traditionallyplaced all Indians at risk in relation to the law.
In general, then, the minimal definition of religious rights developing in this legislation places that which crosses the boundariesof
Native American communities at the heart of that which must be
legally protected. Takenas a whole, these four areas point beyond a
static notion of a religion, instead pointing to late 19th centurylaws,
to the bodies of differentIndians, and to the social and familial networks throughwhich individuals'ceremoniallives and identitieswere
mediated. Taking distinct individuals and their ceremonial needs as
its point of departure,a picture of the relationshipNative Americans have to religion, a picturequite surprisingto many non-Indians,
emerges from this legislation. This is ceremonial scenario for which
the pow wow dancer's outfit may be an apt if unusual metaphor.
Although, admittedly,pow wow outfits are both a moder version
of traditionalpractices of adorningthe body and can themselves be
173
commodified, neither of these qualificationsdiminish their power as

ceremonial metaphor. No two pow wow outfits are identical, each
is a series of ceremonially mediated stories, a set of signifiers that
is highly individualizedwithin a communalcontext. That communal
context is not one place or one elder, but represents the diversity
of the dancer's tribal and kin relations in differentplaces, and their
movement over time and through space. Their outfit is one map of
that aspect of their identity that is constructedceremonially. Like
the relation different Indians have to sacred places, the relationsdifferent individualshave to particularceremonialpracticesand objects
are, then, distributedquite differentiallyacross Native America. Not
all Native Americans use peyote, not all wear long hair, nor do all
members of any given tribe share identically in a singular religion
representedby their tribe. Religious differences can play an importantrole in the alignmentsand associationsof individualsand families
in Indian communities.
This characterizationof the relationshipdifferent Indians have to
religion as a highly individualizedone thatis mediatedin a communal
context in no way adequatelydefines religion in Native America. It
does, however, provide an orientationto the vast store of valuable if
problematicscholarlywork on Native Americanreligions which such
as that of EdwardCurtis who, though bound by a racial and socioevolutionaryframework,travelledat lengthin Native Americamaking
careful observations. It does provide a frameworkfor understanding
his claim that, "The passing of every old man or woman means the
passing of some tradition,some knowledge of sacred rites possessed
by no other." Reading Curtis against the grain of his tragic, socioevolutionary framing, his account supports the claim that no two
individualshold ceremonialknowledge or identity identically.
This individualizationor specialization of identity producedceremonially in Native America is not, however,a standardizedpolitical
or religious ideology; it has totally other roots from an ideology of
individualism and the associated right to hold one's own religious
beliefs. I would argue that this non-standardizedceremonially mediated individualization,to the extent that it characterizesaspects or
174
areas of religion in Native America, provides one explanation for

the courts' regularinterpretationsof any numberof Indian religious
claims as "dispensibleand dispersed"ratherthan "indispensibleand
central." Such non-standardizedceremonially mediated individualization would also provide a frameworkfor understandingthe courts'
regularinterpretationsof Native Americanreligious practicesas arbitrarymattersof personalpreferenceratherthanexpressions of central
religious principles. However, anyone who has spent time in Native
America, in a city or on the "rez,"knows that a highly differentiated
ceremonial context is essential to such productionof individualized
identity. To the extent that this is an adequatecharacterization,more
appropriatethan the alternativeof providing better definitions of religion for the courts' benefit in evaluating Indian religious claims,
would be to pose another question altogether-how essential is a
given ceremonial practice or place to the evolving and serial production of individual identities within a family or community?
Indeed, because all of the dimensions of ceremonial and religious
life in Native America that are essential and requirestatutoryprotection could never be addressedin any list, and because the movement
required for ceremonial practices means that all possible conflicts
with state interestscould never be predicted,NACPFERApoints beyond itself. A fifth area of protection"restoresthe 'compelling state
interest test'... as the legal standardfor protecting Native religious
freedom in all other instances not otherwise specified"(NARF Legal
Review 1993, p. 14). This fifth and open-ended area of religious
protection,then, returnsus to the question of the compelling interest
test and the metapragmaticsof legal process incorporatedinto this
legislation.
Although NACPFERA does not feign comprehensivenessat the
level of defining Native Americanreligions it is concernedwith comprehensivenessregardinglegal discourse, in the sense of federal legal
discourse applyingcomprehensivelyacross the US and to all levels of
the federal government. To illustratethis alternativenotion of comprehensivenessI will refer to only one of the four areas specified in
the bill, to the languageprotectingthe use of peyote by Indians. This
175
portion of the bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by
President Clinton on October 6, 1994 as an amendmentto AIRFA,
as Public Law 103-144. The metapragmatics,or statutorydiscourse
about legal procedure,that characterizethe "peyotebill" apply to the
other areas of protectionidentifiedin NACPFERA.
Although laws protectingthe religious use of peyote were in place
in 28 states at the time this legislation became law, comprehensive
protection for the ceremonial use of peyote is requiredin all states
under this amendment.A relativelyfine-grainedarticulationof those
public interests that can legitimately limit these protections and the
specific circumstances that merit such limitations are also articulated in this law, as they are in the other three areas identified in
NACPFERA.The law includes statementsto the effect that
Nothing in this section shall prohibitany Federaldepartmentor agency, in carrying out its statutoryresponsibilitiesand functions,from promulgatingregulations
establishing reasonablelimitation on the use or ingestion of peyote prior to or
duringthe performanceof duties by sworn law enforcementofficers or personnel
directly involved in public transportationor any other safety-sensitivepositions
(as quoted in H.R. 4230, 4).
While the first clause in this statement is quite general and could
form the basis for challenges to the rights of members of the Native American Church by any federal agency, the specificity of the
second clause is designed to work as a limit to the claims any federal agency can make and as a model for interpretingthe legitimacy
of such limited claims. In addition to the public interest in prison
administration,law enforcement, and public transportation,military
readiness was stipulatedas a possible cause of limitationon the right
to use peyote.'9 NACPFERA,then, develops limitations or practical
boundariesto the authorityof federal agencies.
In the case of each such potentiallimitationthe "peyotelaw" stipulates two additionalprinciples. On the one hand, the law states that,
"Such regulationswill be adoptedonly after consultationwith representativesof traditionalIndianreligions for which the sacramentaluse
of peyote is integral to their practice"(H.R. 4230, 5). On the other
hand, the law regardingthe use of peyote stipulates,"Anyregulation
176
promulgatedpursuantto this section shall be subject to the balancing test set forth in Section 3 of the Religious Freedom Restoration
Act" (ibid., 4). The compelling state interest test, previously used
by lower court judges and SupremeCourtjustices to retrospectively
define the interestsin conflicts alreadylong underway, is writteninto
this legislation, making it a standardto which bureaucratsat all levels
of federal administrationmust refer in the process of writing regulatory laws and as a medium for the considerationand negotiation of
religious rights in the present. In tandem with the requirementthat
relevant Native American religious leaders be consulted regarding
each such regulation or policy, this reorientationof the compelling
interest test signifies a shift that is communicative,requiringan interactive procedureagainst which the outlines of religious and other
interests that are constitutive of the public domain in the US are to
be negotiated. This does not suggest that such negotiations will be
non-conflictual. But it does open the possibility that such conflicts
may not result in the either/or form of rights discourse that could
produce such irrationalscenes as that representedby Lyng (1988),
where the Supreme Court abandonedthe principles of AIRFA over
a logging road that was never built. Additionally, should conflicts
advance to litigation, the extent to which all partieshave fulfilled the
proceduralobligations implied here will itself become relevantto the
evaluationof claims.20
Of course, aspects of this legislation remain problematic; as a
whole it is a negotiated compromise, as will be any emergence of
Native Americanin legal discourse. It does, however,contraststarkly
with the late 19th century prohibitionsof Native American religious
practices, which were based on a racial and socio-evolutionaryframework in which all Indiansoccupied an overdetermined,identical, and
thereforeracial position, as well as with the litigation of the late 20th
century,which from a case by case perspectivebegged the question
of an overarchingframeworkfor interpretationaltogether. Any singular definitionof Native Americanreligions in response to this lack,
while not a negligible project,actuallyonly furtherbegs the question.
Any such definition could necessarily only reflect a lowest common
177
denominatorapproachto definition,thus perpetuatingthe problem of

delegating all Indians to an identical and thereforeracial position in
legal discourse. Having been overdeterminedby colonial and racial
discourses for so long, Native Americans are attemptingto reverse
this process by refiguringthe question of tolerance, understanding,
and knowledge as an interactiveprocess of decolonization. In so doing NACPFERAdeterminesthe different actors who are necessarily
part of the process of definition at stake in the considerationof religious rights, thereby foregroundingthe fact that definition itself is
inevitably a social and culturalprocess.
This orientationtowardthe social, cultural,and historical process
of definitioncan usefully guide futureresearchon law and religion in
Native America. On the one hand,scholarscan map the strategiesand
narrativeswhereby Native Americanrepresentativesof differentceremonial traditionsdefine their needs within alreadycolonized public
space. On the other hand, scholars can investigatethe strategiesand
narrativeswhereby representativesof federal and state governments
incorporate,respondto, re-present,or entirelyexclude the ceremonial
and religious claims of Native Americansin the developmentof legal
discourses, discourses which are not likely to explicitly take religions
as their object-the discourse of the Forest Service, the Bureau of
Land Reclamation,and federal penitentiaries.
In addition, because NACPFERA has shown that the decolonizing potential of Native American religious rights discourse must be
firmly located in the larger project of articulatingalternativeframeworks to one that is racial and socio-evolutionary,it is likely that
the future of Native American religious rights will continue to try
to differentiate Native Americans from one another, while finding
unpredictablecommon cause with Indians of different communities
and non-Indians. Scholars have much to contributeto this projectby
exploring the relationshipbetween racial and otherrelatedtypologies
through which social power has been historically mobilized in the
US.21
Finally, to the extent that my characterizationof Indian religions

as producing highly individualizedand specialized identities within
178
a kinship and communal context is appropriate,questions too numerous and contextual to be enumeratedhere emerge with regardto
the intergenerationalpassing of scholarly research. There is a great
deal that can be read between the lines of the racialized and socioevolutionarydiscourse of the foundersof Americananthropologyand
historiansof religions, and a useful profit to be gained from reading
these texts against the grain of their explanatoryframeworks.
In conclusion, an examination of religion and the law in Native
America cannot be described through the oppositional images that
dominate much discourse, legal and otherwise, on Native America;
throughthe intent of policy makers;or even throughthose discourses
that explicitly take religion as their subject. In attemptingto refigure
the question of tolerance and understandingas an interactive process, Native American rights discourse is providing models for the
transformationof legal discourse and the invigorationof democratic
proceduresand definitionsof public interestsin the US. NACPFERA
is only a glance into the benefit that all Americanshave to gain from
the decolonization of religious and other group "properties"in the
US. As NACPFERA suggests, an acknowledgementof such rights
does not signify the onslaught of endless claims for special rights
that reactionaryvoices are so quick and determinedto put before the
American public, but an increase of historical and empirical rationality that has too long been sacrificed to rhetorical, abstract, and
oppositionalclaims. From this perspectivean examinationof the dynamics of law and religion in Native America evokes more than a
sympatheticreading of the past by opening onto a vision of possible
futures.
University of Chicago
Committee on Ideas and Methods

1050 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60673, USA
SUSAN STAIGERGOODING
179
I
Inouye 1993, p. 3.
2 Sullivan 1987, x.
p.
3 This essay is deeply indebted, in fact, entirely dependent on the thorough
and nuanced researchof many scholars who have plumbed policy and case law on
Native American religions, scholars who have reckoned with legal discourse on its
own terms. While creating a fictive whole out of the researchto which this essay
is beholden in order to take a critical stance, I in no way intend to underminethis
work, only to add to it with an audienceof religious scholars in mind. I am thankful
to Winnie Sullivan, Hans Kippenberg,and FrankReynolds for providing a context
for the re-presentationof this importantwork and for the opportunityto begin to
read the richness of this researchagainst the grain.
4 My usage of the terms"Indian,""NativeAmerican,""indigenous,""non-Indian,"
etc., reflects the context of the discussion in this essay. To many Indians I know
the term "Native American"is as offensive as is the term "Indian"for other Native
Americans. I have tried to be as relevantand specific to the context of my usage as
possible; thus a tendency to use the term "Indian"is reflectedin Part 1 of this essay,
while a tendency to use the term "NativeAmerican"is reflectedin Part 2.
5
Many other state and federal laws prohibitingaspects of Indian cultures and
religions were instituted throughoutthe late 19th century in both federal and state
laws. See Peregoy, Echo-Hawk and Botsford (1995) for example, where the laws
specifying prohibitionson the use of peyote for Indians are outlined.
6 Limerick (1993) also points to the "economic component"of laws prohibiting
Indian religions.
7 See
generally,Americanizingthe American Indians: Writingsby the "Friends
of the Indians" 1880-1900. Of these reformersF.P.Pruchahas said, "Thoughsincere
and humane in their outlook, the reformerswere entrappedin a mold of patriotic
Americanism that was too narrowto allow them to appreciatethe Indian cultures.
Their all-out attack on Indianness must be judged a disaster for the Indians, and
therefore for the nation"(Prucha 1973, p. 10).
8 This contradictiondid not
escape some public commentary. Commissionerof
Indian Affairs Thomas Morgan, under whose authoritythe Rules for Indian Courts
were promulgated,took a vehement stance against the display of Indianceremonies
in carivalesque events off reservations(see his speech in Prucha1973, pp. 309-312)
as did the Indian Rights Association (Prucha 1973, pp. 313-316).
9 Vizenor's
unveilingof the imperialismof social sciences with regardto the tribal
cultures of North America is unremittingand unarguable.See his discussion of one
anthropologicalinterpretationof origin stories from his own Ojibwe tradition,and his
decolonizing interpretationof these stories in Vizenor 1989, pp. 197-208. It must be
noted, however, that scholars have long been significantallies of Native Americans
in courts. Vizenor's work points to the urgencyof reframingsof scholarshipmapped
in this essay.
180
10 Because colonization rather than

oppression has determined the history of
law and religion in Native America, other legislation had begun to address issues
that go beyond the freedom of religious expression and practice. For example, in
1990 specific legislation concerninggraves and sacred objects, the Native American
Graves Protectionand RepatriationAct (25 U.S.C. 3001), was signed into law. See
American Indian Cultureand Research Journal 16 (2) 1992.
1l Specific recommendationswere made in a reportsubmittedone year after the
passage of AIRFA, recommendationsresulting from regional hearings with Native
Americanreligious leaders and the work of the AmericanIndianReligious Freedom
Project (Deloria Jr. and Lytle 1983, p. 237).
12 See Sharon O'Brien's invaluable case by case review of these lower court
decisions in O'Brien (1991).
13 For an in depth discussion of these two cases see Deloria Jr. 1992a and
1992b; Echo-Hawk 1993; Michaelsen 1991; Moore 1991; and Peregoy, Echo-Hawk
and Botsford 1995.
14 Walker (1991), for example, argues that the notion of integrity more adequately reflects Native Americanreligions thanthe notion of centrality,and develops
a set of more empirical questions that might be posed by courts investigating the
integrity of any religious practice. Deloria Jr. (1991), while noting that analogies
to Euro-Americanreligions are always problematic,proposes a provocativeand useful hierarchicallyorganized set of analogies between non-Indianand Indian sacred
places. Echo-Hawk (1993) is an exemplaryexception to the project of definition or
analogy of religions. He takes legal discourse as his focus and powerfully argues
that Israeli laws protecting sacred sites are a model by which the general vacuum
toward sacred places in the US might be addressed.
15Badoni v. Higginson (1980)-acknowledged Navajo religious right to Rainbow
Bridge outweighed by public interest in electricity and tourism. Fools Crow v.
Gullet (1982)-acknowledged Lakota and Tsistsistas religious right to Bear Butte
outweighedby public interestin tourism. Shabazzv. Barnauskas(1985)-recognized
religious right to wear long hair outweighed by public interest in penal security.
Indian Inmates of Nebraska Penitentiaryv. Grammar(1986)-recognized religious
right to peyote outweighed by interest in penal security.
16Following RobertBellah, Deloria Jr.arguesthata scenarioin which these kinds
of interests representpublic values signifies a civil religion, "a generalized religion
that endorses and affirmsthe state" (Deloria Jr. 1992, p. 16).
17 See Deloria Jr. and Lytle 1983, pp. 232-234 on issues of religious rights on
reservations.
18 See the American Indian
Religious Freedom Act Report of 1979, Appendix
list
of
an
for
C
problems that Native Americans face with regard to
extraordinary
areas
and
other
bordercrossings
requiringlegal protection.This list was compiled as
181
a result of regional hearingswith tribalreligious leadersand is an importantresource

for scholars considering religious concerns as voiced by tribal,religious leaders.
19 Peregoy, Echo-Hawk and Botsford (1995) state that the safety-sensitive concerns of public transportationand law enforcementare non-issues for Native American religious leaders, as membersof the Native AmericanChurchdo not use peyote
outside of ceremonial contexts.
20 Robert Peregoy's case study of the protractedstruggle between the Pawnee
Tribe and the NebraskaState Historical Society over repatriationof human remains
shows that conflicts mediatedunder such simultaneouslysubstantiveand procedural
frameworksare likely to be as difficultas litigation,but admitmore rationaloutcomes
than would otherwise be possible.
21 For example, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) has pointed out that the
contraceptiveNorplant,which often causes erraticor constantmenstrualbleeding for
women, is inappropriatefor Native Americanwomen who participatein ceremonies
due to the continuing prohibitionof women who are menstruatingfrom ceremonies
in Native American communities. WARN argues that this kind of informationmust
be understood by doctors and legislators who see Norplant as a panacea for poor
women, and must be incorporatedinto the counselling received by Native American
women before making the decision to use Norplant.
REFERENCES
American Indian Cultureand ResearchJournal (1992) 16 (2) Special Edition: Repatriationof American Indian Remains.
Berkhofer, Robert F. Jr. (1979) The WhiteMan's Indian: Images of the American
Indianfrom Columbusto the Present. New York: Vintage Books.
Deloria, Vine Jr.(1987) "Revisionand Reversion,"in: C. Martin(Ed.), TheAmerican
Indian and the Problem of History. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.
- -(1991) "SacredLands and Religious Freedom,"in: Native American Rights
Fund Legal Review, 16 (2), 1-12.
- - (1992a) "Secularism,Civil Religion, and the Religious Freedomof American
Indians,"American Indian Cultureand ResearchJournal, 16 (2), 9-20.
- - (1992b) "Troublein High Places: Erosion of American Indian Rights to
Religious Freedom in the United States",in: M.A. Jaimes (Ed.), The State of
Native America: Genocide, Colonization,and Resistance. Boston: South End
Press.
Deloria, Vine Jr. and Clifford M. Lytle (1983) AmericanIndians, AmericanJustice.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
182
Echo-Hawk, Walter R. (1993) "Native American Religious Liberty: Five Hundred

YearsafterColumbus",AmericanIndian Cultureand ResearchJournal, 17 (3),
33-52.
Graybill, Florence Curtis and Victor Boesen (1986) Visions of a VanishingRace.
Boston: HoughtonMifflin Co.
Inouye, Sen, Daniel K. (1993) "Discriminationand Native American Religious
Rights,"Native AmericanRights Fund Legal Review,4 (2), 1-8.
Limerick, Patricia (1993) "The Repression of Indian Religious Freedom,"Native
American Rights Fund Legal Review,4 (2), 9-13.
Michaelsen, Robert S. (1991) "Law and the Limits of Liberty," in: C. Vecsey (Ed.),
Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom. New York: Crossroads
Publishing Co.
Moore, Steven C. (1991) "Sacred Sites and Public Lands," in: C. Vecsey (Ed.),
Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom. New York: Crossroads
Publishing Co.
O'Brien, Sharon (1985) "FederalIndian Policy and the InternationalProtection of
Human Rights,"in: AmericanIndian Policy. Norman: U. OklahomaPress.
- -(1991)
"A Legal Analysis of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act,"
in: C. Vecsey (Ed.), Handbookof American Indian Religious Freedom. New
York: CrossroadsPublishingCo.
Peregoy, Robert M. (1992) "Nebraska'sLandmarkRepatriationLaw: A Study of
Cross-CulturalConflict and Resolution,"American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 16 (2), 139-196.
Peregoy, Robert M., Walter R. Echo-Hawk and James Botsford (1995) "Congress
Overturns Supreme Court's Peyote Ruling," Native American Rights Fund
Legal Review 20 (1).
Prucha,FrancisP. (Ed.) (1973) Americanizingthe Indians: Writingsby the "Friends
of the Indian" 1880-1900. Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress.
- - (1990) Documentsof UnitedStates IndianPolicy, 2nd edn. Lincoln: University
of NebraskaPress.
Sullivan, Lawrence E. (Ed.) (1987) Native American Religions: Religion, History,
and Culture Selections from The Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade,
editor in chief. New York: MacMillanPublishing Co.
Walker Jr., Deward E. (1991) "Protectionof American Indian Sacred Geography,"
in: C. Vecsey (Ed.), Handbookof American Indian Religious Freedom. New
York: CrossroadsPublishingCo.
Vizenor, Gerald (Ed.) (1989) Narrative Chance: PostmodernDiscourse on Native
American Literature.Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press.
GovernmentDocuments
1979. American Indian Religious Freedom Act Report. P.L. 95-341.
183
H.R. 4230, 1994. 103rd Congress.

Court Cases
Badoni v. Higginson, 638 E 2d 172 (10th Cir. 1980).
EmploymentDiv., Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 US 872
(1990).
Fools Crow v. Gullet, 541 F. Supp. 785 (D.S.D. 1982).
Indian Inmates of Nebraska Penitentiaryv. Grammar 649 F Supp. 1374 (D. Neb.
1986).
Lyng v. Northwest Indian CemeteryProtective Assoc. 485 US 439, 99 L Ed. 2d
543.
Shabazz v. Barnauskas,600 F. Supp. 712 (M.S.F 1985).
Sherbertv. Verner,374 US 398 (1963).
COMPETING THEORIES OF RELIGION AND LAW IN

THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES:
AN HASIDIC CASE
Summary
The meaning and applicationof the religion clauses of the First Amendmentto
the United States Constitution are currently a matter of intense and increasingly
intractablepublic debate. The academic study of religion can make a positive contributionto this debate by inviting its participantsinto a conversationabout human
religion that is already struggling with problems of definition and of language and
that wishes to affirm the existence and importanceof human religion without establishing a particulardefinition of religion, without unconsciously theologizing. A
close examinationof the legal debate can, in turn, serve the purposes of scholars of
religion. The politically chargedcontext of First Amendmentjurisprudenceprovides
an interestinglaboratoryin which to test theories of religion.
I will examine the recent Grumetcase in the SupremeCourtof the United States
to display an unacknowledgedclash of theologies-as well as a clash of constitutional theories-and to propose the need for greaterattentionto theories of religion
that underline various positions in First Amendmentjurisprudence.The judges, the
amici, and the parties present in this case different and conflicting American identities, identities constructedusing both legal and religious resources which all have
historical roots in the American past.
Introduction
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides
that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." While the First
Amendment has long been central to American political and religious
identity, interpretation of the first clause, the so-called establishment
clause of the First Amendment, has become a matter of particular
contention in recent years. The debate between the "separationists"
and the "accommodationists" or "nonpreferentialists" has become increasingly hostile and intractable. It is a debate that I think scholars
of religion can help with.
NUMEN, Vol. 43
CompetingTheories of Religion and Law
185
The anxious obsessiveness of scholars of religion over the appropriate referentof the word "religion"can be of service to a groupAmericanlawyers andjudges-which has spent a lot of words on the
subject but which, in general, has not had the inclinationor training
to analyze carefully the discourse about religion that they employ.
A close examination of the legal debate can, in turn, serve the purposes of scholars of religion. The politically chargedcontext of First
Amendmentjurisprudenceprovidesan interestinglaboratoryin which
to test theories of religion.
The rhetoricallocation of this battle over the meaning of the establishment clause is, at present, over the constitutionalityof legislative
"accommodations"of religion. In response to a perceived hostility
toward religion by government, the perceived need on the part of
many is that governmentmust rather"accommodate"religion. It is
not enough that governmentleaves religion alone. The importance
of religion must be recognized. Religion must be affirmatively"accommodated,"althoughthere is much debate over what form such an
"accommodation"should take.
Twenty-five years ago the assumption, at least in most judicial
rhetoric, was that the proper goal of the EstablishmentClause was
"separation,"separation of church and state. We have moved in
the intervening time from a desire to keep "church"separatefrom
"state" to a desire for "government"to "accommodate""religion."
The change in language is as significant as the change in direction.
American religion and Americangovernment,and how they are perceived and represented,have changed considerablyduring this time.
There are many reasons for these changes and this shift, as a larger
phenomenon,has attractedconsiderablescholarlyinterestas a feature
of contemporaryculture. Here I will keep the focus on the courts
and how this discussion is played out in that context.
One reason for the intractabilityof the public discourse about the
First Amendment is that neither separationnor accommodationare
meaningful without an accompanyingtheory of religion and of its
relation to law and government. By and large, legal debates about
the First Amendmentfail to deal seriously with how to talk critically
186
about the church that is being kept separate or the religion that is
being accommodated.There is a tendency in legal discourse to have
"religion"be a place holder in the sentence. No content is ascribed
to the word. It is simply filled by whatever individual or group or
tradition is at issue in a particularcase, without examination. All
religion seems to be static and fungible for the purposeof law. Some
speak as if all religion is beneficial, others as if all religion is bad.
Few ask the question, "Whatis religion and how is it relatedto law?"
or "How can we best talk about religion?"
It was easier when the ideology that supportedthe separationof
church and state was founded in the dominanttheology of American
Protestantism.The churchesknew their places and the state knew its
place. While the rhetoric spoke of a wall of separationbetween the
two, there was in fact a pervasive and unacknowledged"accommodation"of mainline Protestantreligion. That theology and its dominance has been increasinglychallenged. It certainlycan no longer be
taken for granted. It is now critical that the theological assumptions
underlying legal theories about religion be made more explicit.
Here I will examine the recent Grumetcase to display an unacknowledged clash of theologies-as well as a clash of constitutional
theories-and to propose the need for greaterattentionto theories of
religion that underlinevariouspositions in First Amendmentjurisprudence.
On June 27, 1994, the United States Supreme Court, in Bd. of
Education v. Grumet,1held that the State of New York had violated
the EstablishmentClause when, by special legislation, it created a
new school district, the boundariesof which were coterminouswith
Kiryas Joel, a village in suburbanNew York which was founded
as and continues to be governed as an exclusive Hasidic enclave-a
satellite of the Satmar community of New York City. The Court's
decision was 6-3. There were six opinions filed in the case, a partial
majority opinion by Justice Souter, separateconcurringopinions by
Justices Souter, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, and Kennedy, and a
dissent by Justice Scalia which was joined in by Justices Rehnquist
and Thomas. The numberof opinions is typical of recent establish-
187
ment clause cases. There is disagreementabout how establishment

clause cases should be decided, and how that should be determined,
naturallyenough. There is disagreementabout the facts in the case
and how they should be understood. And there is a great deal of
rhetoricalposturing. Tempersflare. And accusationsare made.
Fundamentallythe opinions are grounded in different visions of
what it means to be an American. An argumentcan be made that that
question is basically a religious one, in the largest sense of the term,
and that the failure to acknowledgethat fact contributessubstantially
to the distortionof the ongoing debate.
Establishmentclause cases generally are about national identity
because the establishmentclause shapes for Americansthe structure
of the nation's religious life, both in terms of the government'srelations to particularreligious traditionsand in terms of its national
civil religion. In the broadest sense the establishmentclause may
be said to guard against the establishmentof any one interpretation
of what it means to be an American. The establishmentclause in
this sense can be seen as a seriously destabilizing force, constantly
challenging various reifications of a national ethos-whether in the
form of school prayeror of Christmastrees or of segregatedschools.
I will start by reviewing briefly some historicalbackgroundabout
the Hasidic community that is involved and an account of the litigation in the New York Courts. I will turn then to the opinions of
the Supreme Court and to a comparisonamong the religious understandings there represented.The legal materialshere considered are
being read as culturaltexts, not analyzed according to principles of
legal reasoning. The courts will be seen, here, as constructorsof our
culture, not as creatorsof law, althoughthere is a sense in which the
two are inseparable.
Hasidism
Understandingthe Grumetcase requires some backgroundin the
history of Hasidic Judaism. For reasons that are still debated, there
arose in EasternEurope at the beginning of the eighteenthcentury a
188
new form of Jewish piety that excited and eventually influencedperhaps a majorityof the Jews of EasternEurope. The Baal Shem Tov
(the Master of the Good Name)-a legendaryfigure of folk piety-a
miracle worker and story teller-is credited as the founder of this
movement. He modeled and taught a style of mystical piety that
emphasized the importanceof prayer, the need for joy in the performance of the commandmentsand devekut, a cleaving to God by
each individualout of self-effacing love of God. He and his disciples
personalized and devotionalized kabbalistic practices, revolutionizing the piety of many thousands of Eastern European Jews. The
Besht-as he was known-and his disciples discouragedthen current
ascetic practicesand encourageda recognitionof God's goodness and
omnipresenceeven in the sometimes ecstatic enjoyment of physical
pleasure and daily life.
The movementwas at the time seen and is now understoodto have
been both one of religious renewal and redemptionand a reaction to
the isolation and alienation of the ordinaryJew from the scholarly
elite of eighteenth century Rabbinic Judaism. It was at once a religious revival and a social revolution-a liberatingnew form of lay
spiritualitywhich finds parallels in new forms of Christianpiety that
developed in Europe and America in the same period.
This new religious style was not uniformly well-received by those
who emphasized talmudic study as the centerpiece of Jewish piety
and who accused the hasidim of being lax in their observance of
the law, neglectful of Torahstudy and tending toward irrationaland
superstitious modes of worship. A three-way split developed in
East-EuropeanJewry in the early nineteenth century between the
hasidim-the pious ones, the mitnagdim-their orthodox opponents,
and the maskilim-the reformers of the Jewish enlightenment. As
the nineteenthcenturyprogressed,however,the hasidim and the mitnagdim moved closer together, allies in opposition to reform movements within Judaism.
In the nineteenthcentury Hasidism also took on a more settledsome have said degenerate-form. The deep, variedand ecstatic spirituality of the first generationsgave way to elaboratecourts centered
189
aroundpowerful autocraticleaderswith sometimes royalisttrappings.

Each Hasidic court was led by a rebbe, a religious leader who was
believed to be a tzaddik,a righteousone who acted as an intercessor
with God. The rebbe was a holy man who lived a life of dedication
to prayerand sometimes esoteric religious practicessuch as shamanistic journeying while also acting as ruler of a community which
consulted him about virtuallyevery decision in their lives. He was a
living incarnationof the Torah-rising at times to messianic proportions. Robert Seltzer quotes a Hasidic saying about a tzaddik: "I did
not go to the Maggid of Mezeritch to learn Torahfrom him, but to
watch him tie his bootlaces."2
One characteristicof nineteenth and twentieth century Hasidism
is its decentralized nature. There were, and are, real-sometimes
hostile-differences in theology and religious practiceamong Hasidic
courts, differences that result from the idiosyncratichistory,theology
and religious practiceof individualrebbes. Many of the most important rebbes were founders of Hasidic dynasties in which succession
passed from generationto generation-dynasties namedfor the towns
of EasternEuropein which they originatedand which continue in the
American, Europeanand Israeli cities in which they now flourish.
Hasidismwas largelyan EasternEuropeanphenomenonuntil World
War II. It flourishedin the ghettos and villages-shtetls-of Eastern
Europe where Jews lived in often self-governing isolation, separate
from the rest of the population. It saw itself in deliberate opposition to secularism, modernity,assimilation and acculturation,while
the Haskalah-the Jewish enlightenment-saw it as reactionaryand
anti-intellectual.Most Hasidic leaders were also strong opponentsof
what they believed to be the sacrilegious presumptionof Zionism.
The rebbes resisted moving their communities from EasternEurope
even when the political climate became increasinglyhostile because
of fear of the evil influences in the West. They felt that they had
been called to await the coming of the Messiah in the isolation of
their pious insular communities.
Most of the members of the Hasidic communities of EasternEurope were murderedby the Nazis. The Hasidic world was very nearly
190
totally destroyed, particularlyin Poland. Indeed, twenty or thirty

years ago many would have said that the survivingremnantof ultraorthodox Jewry, mitnagdimand hasidim, would slowly decline until
it entirely died out, an anachronismin the modem West. The Hasidic
communities that remain, however, those few who escaped and their
descendants, are centered in strong and increasingnumbersin Israel
and in the cities of the West, especially London, Montreal, Boston
and New York. These communitieshave positionedthemselves on the
extreme right of the spectrumof modem Jewish groups, among the
haredim-those who fear and tremble-the "ultra-orthodox."The
haredim-which includes both hasidim and mitnagdim-all stress
punctilious adherenceto the law and careful separationfrom external
secular worldly influences. Theirs is an all-encompassingreligious
culture. Strict observance of the Sabbath, ritual purificationin the
mikvah, a rigid segregation of the sexes, an obligation to procreate,
modesty in dress are all hallmarksof Hasidic Jews, as they are of
other orthodox Jews. But most distinctive of Hasidic Jews is their
devotion and obedience to their rebbe. It is the role of the rebbe and
the rituals that surroundhim that most distinguishes Hasidic Jews
from other ultra-orthodoxJews.
There remain puzzled debates about the causes of the rise of Hasidism in the eighteenthcenturyand aboutits relationshipto the social
and economic situationin EasternEuropeand to the rest of Judaism.
Why, if it began as a liberatingmovementhas it become a reactionary
one? Perhapsthat is just the fate of successful religious movements.
Was Hasidism really a medieval or a moder phenomenon? Was it
characteristicallya throw-backto an older Jewish religious style or
was it essentially moder and individualist in contrast to medieval
Judaism,though in a differentway from reform Judaism?
Their continued success would suggest that, like other fundamentalist groups, Hasidic communities have been singularly successful
in critiquingand negotiatingmodernity.Put in the context of worldwide fundamentalisms,the Hasidim seem very moder indeed. They
are a part of modernity from its inception, inventing themselves in
opposition to secularism,and consciously crafting a "tradition"from
191
the rich resources of Jewish orthodoxy and mysticism. They are a

highly educated, technologically sophisticatedand politically astute
group. They are at home in courts and with legal argumentation.
Kiryas Joel
The community about which this lawsuit is concerned is the Satmar hasidim of New York,the largest and most conservativeHasidic
community in the United States. The Satmarhasidim trace their origins to the town of Satu Mare in Hungary.The founder of the New
York Satmars, the Satmarerrebbe, was Joel Teitelbaum, a charismatic, autocratic and outspoken man who emigrated to the United
States from Israel in 1945 where he had fled after he was ransomed
from Bergen-Belsen in 1944. Rebbe Teitelbaumwas known to those
within his communityboth for his personalholiness and for his charity to those belonging to his court. To outsidershe is best known for
his vociferous opposition both to Zionism and to the creation of the
State of Israel. He saw the creation of the secular state of Israel as
a heretical and sacrilegious usurpationof the Messiah's role and he
understood the annihilationof six million Jews by the Nazis to be
God's retributionfor that presumption.
For almost thirty-five years the Satmar hasidim, under the iron
rule of Joel Teitelbaum, maintained a large and vital presence in
the Williamsburgsection of New York,complete with Yiddish newspapers, an extensive internal welfare system, yeshivas, and Kosher
shops. It was and is a bastion of Jewish ultra-orthodoxy.The rest
of human culture and the rest of the humanrace are outside the system, especially most fellow Jews-non-Orthodox-who are regarded
as apostates. The non-Jewishworld and its technology has a kind of
dual identity. While its moral values and its practicesare suspect as a
whole, as long as their employmentdoes not violate specific halakhic
provisions, parts may be seen as mere instruments,unhallowed but
morally neutral.
In 1974, when Brooklyn could no longer contain the population
growth and city problems became more intractable, the Satmarer
192
rebbe led the establishmentof a new community in ruralNew York,

in Monroe township, north of the City. It was named Kiryas Joel after Joel Teitelbaum. The new village boomed. Families averagedten
children. A mikvah was built. Religious schools were built, one for
boys and one for girls. Kosher businesses were established. Today
the populationis over 12,000, half of whom are children. Those who
visit it speak of the disconcertingexperienceof findinga replicaof the
East Europeanshtetl transplantedto suburbanNew York: large families of boys with earlocks and girls with long-sleeved modest dresses
speaking Yiddish and playing separately;women with wigs or kerchiefs covering shaved heads; men with the distinctive dress of East
Europeanvillages in the nineteenthcentury. It is a bustling Yiddishspeakingcommunitydedicatedto observanceof Jewish law and to the
imminent appearanceof the Messiah. There is no radio or television.
There are cars and telephones and fax machines. While the Satmar
avoid contaminationfrom the non-Jewishvalues of the secularmedia,
the Satmarcommunities of New York are in close communicationthroughmodem telecommunications-with each other and with their
co-religionists in Jerusalem,London and Montreal.
As in any group ruled by a charismaticleader succession has often been difficult in Hasidic courts. Joel Teitelbaumdied in 1979
without an heir. His was a very difficult act to follow. The Council of Elders chose his nephew, Moshe Teitelbaum, the rebbe of a
smaller congregation in Borough Park, to be the new leader of the
Satmarcommunity. He was crowned in Kiryas Joel a year after Joel
Teitelbaumdied. Moshe Teitelbaumchose his son, Aaron, to be his
deputy, as rov or chief rabbi of Kiryas Joel. But the new rebbe and
his son have not won the support of the entire community. Many
residents of Kiryas Joel and of the Satmarcommunitiesin New York
City, remain devoted to the memory of Joel Teitelbaum.
The relationshipof the present communityof fundamentalistJews
in OrangeCountyto theirforbearsin EasternEuropeis complex. Any
living communitymakes continuingchoices about what to retain and
what to change in the received tradition. While the Satmar of New
York identify themselves as successors to the Hasidic courts of Satu
193
Mare, they inhabit a very different world. WesternHasids are more

prosperousand more observantthan their ancestorsever could be, in
partbecause of the protectionof laws like the FirstAmendment. They
are also dependent on the economic and social support of the welfare state. Furthermore,by all reports,since Joel Teitelbaum'sdeath,
their political edge has softened. They have changed in the context
of American institutions. Living in a free country has changed the
community and the community is divided. One has to be extremely
cautious about characterizingas a whole either the religious or political views of Hasids in general or of the Satmarhasidim in particular.
KiryasJoel appearsin the briefs and in the opinions of the Grumet
case as a uniform whole, seamless and without conflict, united in its
dedication to God and to the maintenanceof its special way of life.
Judgesneed stable well-definedfacts, not living organisms-on which
to make their pronouncements.In fact, Kiryas Joel is a community
that, at least since the deathof Joel Teitelbaum,is seriouslydivided. It
is a communityin crisis. The succession producedmuchunhappiness.
There is disagreementabout the schools in Kiryas Joel, even within
the religious school system. A dissenting Yeshiva has already been
created in opposition to the yeshiva sanctioned by the rebbe. A
follower of the former rebbe has been expelled from the synagogue
and his childrendismissed from the Jewish school for challengingthe
present rebbe and for attemptingto run for the school board. There
is much debate about the wisdom of going to secular courts to settle
internaldisputes. All, of course, regardthemselves as orthodox and
in conformity with their tradition.
The separatenessof the Hasidic community in Kiryas Joel from
the largerAmerican communityhas been created, as was that of the
Jewish communities of EasternEurope,by secular law as well as by
religious law. During the medieval and early moder period successive Polish, German and Russian governmentsshaped and reshaped
the laws that bound Jews, restrictingtheir occupations, the location
of their residences, their ability to travel and their right to pass their
wealth to their children. Jews were subject to special, often crippling, taxes, openly designed by political leaders to raise revenues
194
without sacrificing popularity among Christians: taxes on Sabbath

candles, taxes on Kosherbutchersand taxes simply for being Jewish.
Jewish communities were subject to the often schizophrenic desire
of these governments on the one hand to make Jews assimilate by
learning the national language or dressing in modem clothes while
on the other keeping them separate and restrictedto ghettos. Jews
reacted in conflicting ways. Some sought assimilation. Some sought
ways to modernizeJewish philosophy-to reconcile Jewish traditions
with moder science and philosophy. Some relished the isolation,
affirming and celebrating insular Jewish traditions in opposition to
acculturationand reform.
While the ultra-orthodoxJewish communitiesof the moder West
are not subject to the same penal laws as their ancestors were in
EasternEurope,their communitiesseem, at times, almost to replicate
voluntarily the ghettos of Poland and Russia. Kiryas Joel has been
involved, as have otherHasidic communitiesin New York,in a series
of lawsuits designed to protect its way of life and to insulate it from
the largersociety-to give it secular as well as religious legal definition. When the new village was accused by the Monroe town board
of violations of the building code because of the conversionof single
family homes into multiple family units and the commercial use of
residentialproperty,the village successfully petitionedto incorporate
as a separateentity. The drawingof the village borderwas carefully
and explicitly done to include only Satmarand to exclude others.
In 1987 the village objected to the use of women drivers in the
state-supportedschool buses to which they were entitled for transportationof the boys to religious schools. The bus companyattempted
to accommodatethe village by providingexclusively male driversbut
the bus driversunion objected on behalf of their overwhelminglyfemale drivers. The village decided to forgo free bus service, rather
than subject the boys to contact with the female drivers.
Finally, in the series of lawsuits that led up to the promulgation
of the law that is the subject of the Grumet case, the village has
attemptedto obtain public schooling for their handicappedchildren
195
separate from the special education provided for other handicapped

public school children in the area. Other Hasidic groups in New
York have also been involved in extensive litigation to maintaintheir
separateness.
The Grumetcase
Virtually all of the children in Kiryas Joel and some Hasidic
children living in nearby communities attend the village's religious
schools, talmudic academies for the boys and special schools for the
girls. Beginning in the early eighties, some families in the village
decided to take advantageof federal legislation mandating"free and
appropriate"public education for handicappedchildren and sought
permission from Rebbe Teitelbaumto do so. When he grantedsuch
permission, the Monroe Township school district in which the village was situated initially provided special education teachers who
taught in classroom annexes in the religious schools. However, after
the Supreme Court's decision in 1985 declaring teaching by public
school teachersin parochialschools to be unconstitutional,3the Monroe school districtdecidedthatit could no longerprovidesuch instruction in parochial schools and that the handicappedHasidic children
would have to come to the public schools to receive special education.
A few of the Kiryas Joel parents sent their children to the public
schools for special education but soon withdrew them, arguing that
their children had been too traumatizedby "leaving the language,
lifestyle and environment of the Village and mixing with others"
in the regular public schools. The village parents then brought an
action to requirethe Monroe School District to provide the services
at independent sites near the Kiryas Joel schools. The New York
Court declined to requiresuch an arrangement.
After furthernegotiation and litigation the legislation that is the
subject of this case was proposed and a new public school district
was created for Kiryas Joel in 1989. The statutereads:
The territoryof the Village of Kiryas Joel in the Town of Monroe, Orange
County, on the date when this act shall take effect, shall be and hereby is
196
constituted a separate school district, and shall be known as the Kiryas Joel
Village School District and shall have and enjoy all of the powers and duties of
a union free school district under the provisions of the EducationLaw.4
The new district was a full-fledged public school district under the
Board of Regents of the State of New Yorkbut the only public school
in this new district was a school for the Hasidic children of Kiryas
Joel and Hasidic children from other Hasidic communities needing
special education. Three quartersof the $3.2 million school budget
was paid by local taxes. The rest was paid throughstate aid.
According to the briefs of the Kiryas Joel Village School District,
the 13 full-time disabled childrenfrom Kiryas Joel and the 238 parttime children from Kiryas Joel and handicappedchildren from other
Hasidic communities received a "wholly secular education." There
was no religious instructionin the school. There were no mezuzahs
at the doors. But only Hasidic children attendedthe school. It was
explicitly understood at the time of its creation that if non-Hasidic
children should move into the Village the Village would pay tuition
for them to attendthe Monroe Townshipschools.
Whetherit is in fact the case that the school was "wholly secular"
is not at issue in this case because it was the creation,not the administration, of the school district that was at issue. The parties agreed
that the school was totally secular for purposes of this case. But
dissidents within the communityhave arguedotherwise to the press.
They have pointed to the fact that all of the school board members
were chosen by the rebbe and ran unopposed in school board elections; that the school kept a kosher kitchen;that older boys and girls
were segregated;that the school was only nominally open on Jewish
holidays and that it did not celebrate Valentine'sDay or Halloween
out of deference to the religious concerns of the parents. All of the
teachers' aides in the school were from Kiryas Joel but none of the
teachers were Hasidic. Most were modem Orthodox. No villagers
were qualified as public school teachers because Satmarerhasidim
are not permittedto attendcollege for fear of profanecorruption.
It is the creation of this new public school district that was at
issue in the Grumet case. Did the State of New York violate the
197
Constitutionof the United States when it came up with this solution

to a longstandingand bitter local dispute? Is this "a law respecting
an establishment of religion" or is this a constitutionallypermitted
"accommodation"of religion? Is it about religion at all? Should
we call "the language, lifestyle and environmentof the Village" religion? And how should we "accommodate"it if we do? Whether
or not one calls it religion is not a matterof mere academic interest.
Constitutionalrights depend upon the choice.
New YorkCourts
Three levels of the New York State courts declared the statute
to be an unconstitutionalestablishment of religion, although they
did not always agree on where the constitutional flaw was to be
found. The courts were handicappedof course by the fact that the
statuteitself makes no mentionof religion, althoughGovernorCuomo
acknowledged a potential First Amendmentproblem in the remarks
he made when he signed the bill.
The trial courtjudge, Justice Kahn, concluded:
There is no doubt that the legislation was an attemptby the Executive and the
Legislatureto accommodatethe sectarian wishes of the citizens of Kiryas Joel
by taking the extraordinarymeasure of creating a governmentalunit to meet
their parochial needs.5 (emphasis supplied)
and that, "The legislation is an attemptto camouflage, with secular

garments, a religious community as a public school district."6Accommodationof religion is here seen as unconstitutional."Sectarian
wishes" and "parochialneeds,"in Justice Kahn's view, should not be
motivating governmentaction. He warns: "This short range accomplishmentcould in the long run,jeopardizethe very religious freedom
that they now enjoy."7
On appeal, the New York Appellate Division, in a four to one
decision, agreed with Justice Kahn, again emphasizing the sectarian
nature of the children's needs.8 All of the judges in the majority
simply assume that the motivationof the residentsof KiryasJoel and
of the New York legislature is to aid religion. The one dissenter
198
in the appellate division argued that the purpose of the statute was
secular, to provide secular special education, and that the children's
needs were secular. The professed goal of the Satmarerparents,
Judge Levine said, was to protect their children from psychological
and emotional traumabecause of their distinct cultural,not religious,
needs for segregation. He further argued, however, at the tail end
of his opinion, that even if it is appropriateto attributea religious
motivationto the Satmarerparents,the statutewould be constitutional
because it would be "accommodating"religion: "[I]tsprincipaleffect
would ... be to lift a substantialburdenon the sect's free exercise of
religion"9(emphasis added). Accommodationof "sectarian"needs is
here seen as a desirable goal of government.
The New York Court of Appeals affirmed. What concerned Chief
Judge Kaye, concurring,was the favoritismshown to a particularreligion. Kaye concludes that "the State engaged in de jure segregation
for the benefit of the one religious group,"10an action that not only
violates the First Amendmentbut that also violates Brown v. Bd. of
Education."' Brown,afterall, said that it was not only for the sake of
the black children, it was for the sake of the white children,too, that
integrationwas necessary. The creationof this special school district
for Hasidic children is a repudiationof the ideology of the public
schools as common schools. The second concurringopinion in the
New YorkCourtof Appeals arguesthat the statuteis unconstitutional
because it allows the Satmarhasidim to employ the police power of
the state to enforce a religious doctrine,namely the separationof the
Hasidic children from the rest of the population.
In dissent, Judge Bellacosa argues that the challenged legislation
was in fact an appropriateand admirableresponse to the demands
of cultural pluralism. He struggles at length over the appropriate
judicial role in the determinationof "religiosity." He argues finally
that the challenged statute was a careful solution which addressed
only the secular needs of the Satmarchildrenwithout succumbingto
"the theology of their families,"'2namely a theology which entirely
rejects secularism. His opinion displays a thoughtfulconfusion about
where to locate the religion in this case. Bellacosa says that courts
199
should not be deciding theological questionsyet he resists ceding that

determinationto the hasidim-applauding New York's insistence on
the secularismof the KiryasJoel school. Accommodation,for Judge
Bellacosa, means giving the benefit of the doubt to pluralism-and
talking about culturalratherthan religious differences:
The facile notion that the cultural,psychological and secular differences of the
special-needs children of Kiryas Joel cannot be classified as anything but religious in natureshould be rejected as alien to our most cherished traditionsand
values. The cultural disposition and circumstancesof handicappedSatmarer
children should not disqualify them from governmentattentionon the bare conclusion that their differentnessis derived solely from their religious beliefs and,
therefore, is constitutionallyinseparablefrom their religiosity. A culturallydiverse nation, which proclaimsitself undera banner,E Pluribus Unum,should not
toleratesuch a self-contradiction,for to penalize and encumberreligious uniqueness in this way, in effect strikes the "E Pluribus"and leaves only the Unum.13
Interestingly,Bellacosa suggests that just because the hasidim call

their children's needs religious does not mean that we have to. Accommodationof religion may best be done by avoiding the label.
The judges in the New York Courts thus found the statute unacceptable for a variety of reasons: New York was actually delegating
political power to a religious sect or a "symbolicunion of churchand
state" (emphasis added) had been created or discriminationamong
religious groups had occurredor New Yorkwas making political decisions on the basis of Hasidic theology. The precise nature and
location of the religion varied. Perhapsit was unimportant.The very
effort at accommodation,the attentionto the issue by the legislature,
seemed to cause the New York courts disquiet.'4The dissents, however, have a similarly vague devotion to accommodation.They want
to accommodatethe Hasidic children but they cannot quite agree on
what it is about them that deserves special attention. Both sides have
difficulty identifying the object of their concern.
There is little agreementamong these judges about whose religion
the court should be concerned with, where the religion is located,
or what it looks like when it is found. What exactly is Hasidic
about the Kiryas Joel Village School District and what is religious
200
about being Hasidic? Kiryas Joel is a village incorporated(apparently constitutionally)15under New York law. Does it just happen
to contain a homogeneous populationwho happenedto all settle together and want to go to school togetheror is the State of New York
being used as a front for a theocratic government? What makes a
school religious? Is segregationenough? How do you decide? Can
you make such a decision without making "theological"and therefore possibly unconstitutionaljudgments? What are the rights of the
children? These are very difficult questions.
The SupremeCourt
The briefs filed in the Supreme Court by the parties and their
amici16restate and reframe the argumentsmade in the New York
courts, again without addressing what it is that is religious about
Kiryas Joel. The Brief filed by the Kiryas Joel Village School District in supportof the New York statute, like those of the dissenting
New York judges, argues in the alternative. Most of the brief, the
first forty pages, focuses on the argumentthat this case is not about
religion. This is not a First Amendmentcase, in fact. The handicapped children of KiryasJoel are entitledunderfederal law to "free
and appropriatespecial education."The creationof the special school
district facilitated the provision of these "wholly secular"services to
handicappedchildrenwhen it became impossible for them to use the
services provided by the local school district for reasons having to
do with the children's psychological and emotional needs. This case
is not about religion, they argue. It is about handicappedchildren.
In the alternative,however, and almost as an afterthought,Kiryas
Joel also argues in a short three-page section at the end of their
brief that the creation of the school district had, "at most, the effect
of accommodatingthe needs of a community of devoutly religious
people."17They seem to hope here (in this nod to the "accommodationists") that being devout may entitle you to special constitutional
attention.18If the KiryasJoel School District is not intensely secular,
it is intensely religious. But the overwhelmingmessage of their brief
201
is that this statuteis facially neutraland the needs of the handicapped

children of Kiryas Joel are secular.
There remains a strong sense, however, that we have been the
victim of a sleight of hand. This is a communitythat describes itself
as a "devoutlyreligious people,"that professes to believe that no part
of their lives is too insignificant to be worthy of God's attention.
Moder secular culture and the separation of church and state is
for the rest of us. Choosing to call the education of some of their
children as entirely secular while having it remain acceptable to the
communitymust be a carefulcall. One feels thatthe division between
secular and sacred is here being carefully determinedby Jewish law
and that the language of such a determinationmay vary depending
on whether it is an external or an internalissue.
Kiryas Joel's lawyers move from a constitutionalinterpretationof
the community to a sectarian interpretationof the community in a
very slippery way. Separationof the sexes and segregation of the
community are not halakhicallyprescribed,strictly speaking, so they
argue they are not "religious"in some sense. That may not mean
that, seen from the outside, separation and segregation are not in
some sense regardedby the community as being part of God's plan.
Whose definition of religion does the Constitutionattendto?
In startlingcontrastto the careful "secularism"of the Kiryas Joel
brief are the nine Amicus briefs filed in support of the Kiryas Joel
School District. Briefs were been filed by the United States Catholic
Conference;the RutherfordInstitute;the ChristianLegal Society, the
National Association of Evangelicals, the SouthernCenter for Law
and Ethics and the Family Research Council; the Institutefor Religion and Polity; the SouthernBaptist Conventionand the Christian
Life Commission;the Knightsof Columbus;the Archdioceseof New
York; the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs;
the American Center for Law and Justice and the Catholic League
for Religion and Civil Rights. These are not groups seeking secular
educations for their children. These briefs, with varying degrees of
sophistication,presenta frontalattackon currentestablishmentclause
jurisprudenceas creatinga presumptionagainst religion. All of these
202
briefs urge the Court to take a "pro-religion"position on the First

Amendment by endorsing an interpretationof the First Amendment
that permits positive legislative accommodationsof religion. They
present an interesting mix of libertarianphilosophy and evangelical
Christianity.Their goal is state aid to parochialschools and more religion in public life generally. Sacredand secularare parseddifferently
here and the Kiryas Joel communityis differentlydefined. But these
amici have no doubtthatwhat is at stakehere are the rightsof religion.
The contrast between the brief of Kiryas Joel and those of their
amici highlight the Satmarcommunityas un-American,un-American
in its refusal to have its religiousness be a legal question. In other
words, the residents of Kiryas Joel seem to feel that it is no threat
to their standing with God to call their school secular. Their amici,
on the other hand, and other accommodationists,strainto have their
religiousness acknowledgedand accommodatedby the courts and the
legislatures (not to mention the InternalRevenue Service) as if such
an acknowledgmentis a prerequisiteto legitimatestatusas a religion.
It is characteristicallyto the Supreme Court ratherthan to God that
American people of faith look for that legitimation. They do not
seem to be confident that if their religion is not recognized as such
by the SupremeCourtthat it will still be a religion. The residentsof
Kiryas Joel seek redemptionin anotherarena.
Louis Grumetand Albert Hawk, executives of the New YorkState
School Boards Association, plaintiffs in the trial court and respondents in the Supreme Court, argue in support of the decision of the
New York courts, that the purpose of the law creating the new district was indeed to accommodatethe religious need of Kiryas Joel to
remain culturallyisolated and that such an accommodationis unconstitutionalbecause the law effects the symbolic union of church and
state. It also puts the governments in the position of affirmatively
endorsing segregatededucation.
Amicus briefs in supportof respondentswere filed by Americans
United for the Separationof Church and State, the American Jewish Council, the Anti-DefamationLeague, the ACLU, the National
Council of Jewish Women, the UnitarianUniversalist Association,
203
the Council on Religious Freedom, the National School Boards Association, the AFL-CIO,the National Coalition for Public Education
and Religious Liberty, the National Education Association and the
Committeefor the Well-Being of KiryasJoel. These briefs argue vociferously thatcreationof the KiryasJoel Village School Districtis an
unconstitutionalestablishmentof religion. The rhetoricis strong and
hostile. The actions of the New York State legislatureare characterized as "religiousgerrymandering,"
resultingin "religiousapartheid"
and the creationof a "theocraticmunicipality."The amici offer many
additional "facts"about the control of the rebbe in Kiryas Joel over
the municipal government, including restrictive covenants with respect to sale and lease of propertyand the requirementthat any new
resident contribute$10,000 to the congregationin advance as a condition of admission to the community. In response to the claim of
petitionersthatthe school is entirelysecular,the brief of the Coalition
for Public Educationand Religious Libertyreplies:
But if it is "very significant"that the school has no mezuzahs, it is equally
significant that mezuzahs are publicly and fully displayed on both the exterior
and interiordoors of the Kiryas Joel MunicipalBuilding. Indeed the Municipal
Building at Kiryas Joel contains not only the "secular"WaterDepartmentand
Head StartProgram,it also contains the offices of the sectarianUnited Talmudic
Academy TorahV'Yirah and the Mid-HudsonSchool of Judaic Studies. Kiryas
Joel's Mayor, Leopold Lefkowitz, no doubt finds it convenientto have the municipal offices and the yeshivah offices combined because, as he acknowledged
in his deposition, not only is he the Mayor of the village, but he also serves
as President of the CongregationYetev Lev D'Satmar and as President of the
United TalmudicAcademy TorahV'Yirah.19
The Amicus briefs supportingRespondentscome close to saying that

the very existence of the village of Kiryas Joel is unconstitutional
because in Kiryas Joel church and state are merged.
Justice Souter's opinion for the majority in the Supreme Court
affirming the decision of the New York Courts says that the constitutional flaw in New York state's action was in the delegation of
political power to a group defined on religious criteria. The goal of
the establishmentclause, Souterrepeats,often, is neutrality,neutrality
204
with respect to religion and as among religions. The word neutrality

is mentionedtwenty times in a relativelyshort opinion. By allocating
political power on a religious criteria,by creatinga school districtfor
Hasidic Jews, New York had failed to act neutrally. Justice Souter
does not address whether it is appropriateto describe Hasidism or
Kiryas Joel as religious. He simply asserts it, beginning the substantive part of his opinion with, "The residents of Kiryas Joel are
vigorously religious people..."20
Justice Stevens, concurring,accuses New YorkState of "affirmative
state action in aid of segregation,"and recommendsthat an appropriate remedy would have been to teach "theirschoolmatesto be tolerant
and respectful of Satmarcustoms."21
Justice O'Connor'sconcurringopinion is somewhatdifferent. She
is concerned here as she has been in previous establishmentclause
cases about equality, political equality: "one's religion ought not affect one's legal rights or duties or benefits."22"[T]hegovernment"she
says, "generallymay not treatpeople differentlybased on the God or
Permissible"accommodation"
gods they worshipor don't worship."23
for her means accommodationbased on the "deeply held beliefs" of
individuals-such as in the case of conscientious objection-not on
"sect." The evil she sees is discriminationwhich is "sectarian"which
creates political inequality among groups.
All of the majorityin the SupremeCourt is concerned about governmentbenefits flowing to those who are identifiedfor that purpose
by a religious label, and "religion"for them means sectarian. They
are concerned about the governmentdividing the communityby sect.
But none discuss what is sectarianabout Hasidism. The religious nature of Hasidism is simply assumed. All of the majorityalso pays lip
service to accommodation. To different degrees each concedes that
legislative accommodations of religion are sometimes appropriate.
Examples they point to are prison and militarychaplaincies,exemptions from certainlaborlaws, from oath-taking,from militaryservice,
or from narcoticslaws. In distinguishingthe Grumetcase as involving
an unconstitutionalline-drawingbased on religious criteriait is hard
to see how these other "accommodations"do not do the same thing.
205
Justice Scalia filed a vituperativedissent,joined in by Chief Justice

Rehnquist and Justice Thomas. Scalia begins, as Justice Souter did,
by simply announcing, without authority and without explanation,
that the distinctiveness of the Satmarsect is a culturalratherthan a
religious characteristic.He then goes on to accuse the court of religious intolerance,even anti-semitism,because of its concern for the
self segregationof this group. In responseto JusticeStevens' concern
about the state aiding in the isolation of the Satmarchildren, Scalia
snidely and sarcasticallyreplies, "So much for family values."24He
calls Justice Stevens' opinion "a manifesto of secularism."25Justice
Scalia, with the dissenters in the New York courts, wants to call
the Hasidic Jews a cultural class-if that will work-but otherwise
he, too, argues for an accommodationthat permits special legislative attentionto religious groups. It is the corporateexistence of the
religious group, ratherthan that of the individual,that he wishes to
accommodate-the group's need for a self-containedidentity and its
right to perpetuateitself throughthe education and discipline of its
members.26
There are strongly contrastingviews of what religion is in these
opinions: Justice O'Connor's highly individualisticand almost antiinstitutional concern with deeply held beliefs whether religious or
secular, Justice Stevens' concern to build a tolerantand understanding multiculturalcommunity,and Justice Scalia's more communitarian concern with supportingparentsin bringing up children in their
own faith.
Can Religion be AccommodatedConstitutionally?
Who is right? Is this case about religion or is it about special
education? Does the New York law address the real needs of children by creating this school or does it turn over a state institutionto
managementby a religious hierarchyfor its own purposes? Why is
it so difficult to decide? This case might be better understoodas a
collision between differentversions of what it means to be religious.
206
The judges, the amici, and the residentsof KiryasJoel presentdifferent and conflicting identities, identities constructedusing both legal
and religious resources.
The Satmarhasidim, like all OrthodoxJews, define themselves by
their observance of the 613 mitzvot, the laws of God. Their avowed
purpose is to await the coming of the Messiah while observing his
commandmentswith joy and punctiliousness. Their common object
in designing their lives in Kiryas Joel seems to be to create a space
using both Jewish and New York state law in which they can attend
to their religious observancesunderthe directionof their rebbe. The
division of the world into the sacred and the secular is defined in
this context by Jewish law, as their rabbis interpretit. The First
Amendment for the residents of Kiryas Joel means being free to
observe Jewish laws, as they interpretthem.
The New York Courts and the SupremeCourt majoritywant to fit
the residents of Kiryas Joel into their own legal and religious worldview, a worldview that regardssecularlaw and public schools as what
we hold in common, part of our civic religion, if you will, and that
regardsparticularreligion as somethingprivate. While they may call
their approach"neutrality"they cannot avoid labeling something as
religious. The majorities wish to keep particularreligion separate
from public institutions. They are uncomfortablethat the State of
New York is being used to effectuate what they see to be the particular religious and legal ends of the residents of Kiryas Joel. The
sectarian religiousness of the Kiryas Joel community threatens the
secular religion of the public school and of the State of New York.
The judicial dissenters,too, believe thatreligion can be containedaccommodatedand contained. Their major argumentis that this law
was about special education and that in that context it is appropriate that the culturaldifferences of children who are properlyentitled
under federal law to very special considerationshould be accommodated, whatevertheir religious beliefs. It is enough for them that the
school is apparentlysecular. But their underlyingmotivation seems
to be more honestly representedin the briefs of the amici and the
207
codas to each of their opinions. The needs of religion should be

specially accommodatedby government.
The amici supportingthe petitionersstraightforwardlywish to remake the First Amendmentto resacralizeAmerica. The crudest and
perhaps the most revealing of the Amicus briefs filed in supportof
Kiryas Joel is the brief filed on behalf of the SouthernBaptist Convention. In a cry reminiscent of the boy declaring the Emperorto
have no clothes, the SouthernBaptist Conventionannounces:
Respondentsexpress their conviction about the importanceof secular,heterogeneous pluralismwith almost religious fervor,as if it were the official religion of
public education.27
Exactly.
Whose religion and whose law is to be accommodated?The religion and the law of public educationor the religion and law of Kiryas
Joel? Accommodationnecessarily means drawinga line on religious
criteria, a practice all of the majoritydeplores. Whetheryou are an
"accommodationist"or a "separationist,"though, you have to have
some way of locating the religion. How can a court decide what is
religious about the Kiryas Joel Village School District? And whose
opinion counts? Like other post-moder fundamentalisms,Hasidism
is a complex phenomenonchallenging any easy division between the
political, the cultural and the religious. Courts cannot easily decide whetherHasidic separatismis religiously or culturallymotivated
without taking a philosophical position about the nature of religion
and its relationshipto culture.
On the whole Americancourts simply participatein, withoutexamining, a discourseaboutreligion thatfinds its origins in Enlightenment
and evangelical protestantunderstandingsof religion and its relationship to the state. That discourse regardsa disestablishedProtestant
church as the model of what religion is. It is baffled by religion that
does not fit the model. It is also unpreparedto deal with those who
frankly think disestablishmentwas a mistake.
What to call religious and where to drawthe line between religious
and secular is becoming increasinglydifficult for American lawyers.
208
Just the fact that all of these cases are argued in the alternativeby
all of the lawyers and judges is evidence of the confusion. Both
sides here, as in other establishmentclause cases, present arguments
that ironically do not finally depend on the action in question being
religious. For the petitioners,whetherthe act is religious or not, it is
constitutional. For the respondents,whether it is religious or not, it
is unconstitutional.
Both seem uncertainof the ability of the label "religious"to stick.
And rightly so. What was once secular is becoming religious and
what was once religious is becoming secular. AmericanIndiansused
to go to court to enforce treaty rights. They were perceived as political entities, the bearer of political rights, the victims of political
oppression. Now they go to court to demandtheir First Amendment
rights. They are seen and they see themselves as religious and as
victims of religious oppression. David Koresh spoke the language
of biblical prophecy but was treatedas a psychopathwho had taken
hostages. A representationof the birth of a god was declared by the
Supreme Court to be a secular symbol-a bit of harmless cultural
tinsel.28Celebrating sacramentswas declared not protected by the
free exercise clause of the First Amendment.29A menorah erected
by the Lubavitcherhasidim was found to be a symbol of cultural
diversity not of a miracle.30
This confusion is abundantlydisplayed in the Grumet case. Is
Hasidic separatismreligious or secular? None of the presenttheories
of the First Amendmentanswer that question. After the decision in
Lynch,31the creche case, an establishmentclause case, and Smith,32
the peyote case, a free exercise case, many argued that the First
Amendment had, effectively, been eviscerated. Although there is
much to criticize in the opinions of the Court in both of those cases
I think the argumentcan be made that they, and subsequent First
Amendment cases, including this one, signal a shift, if a somewhat
inarticulateshift, in the Court'sunderstandingof religion away from
model to a more fluid and inclusive one
an Enlightenment/Protestant
in which religion and culture are seen as more intimately related,
209
and the Court is more reluctantto draw the line between sacred and
secular.33That situationis far from being acknowledged,however.
Conclusion
Rethinkingthe First Amendmentmust begin with the acknowledgment that religion is a universal aspect of human culture, fluid and
dynamic, distinctive yet changing, and morally ambiguous. While it
may be a humancharacteristicto divide the world into the sacredand
the profane,it is not easy to see how it would be possible to legislate
such distinctionsin a pluralistsociety. A communityas homogeneous
as Kiryas Joel has difficulty maintainingconsistency and unanimity
on the issue, even when presentingitself to the largercommunity.
Governmentaccommodation of religion under the United States
Constitutioncan only be about seriously acknowledgingthe universal tendency of human beings to create religion-to be religiousnot about helping out particularreligious institutions. Otherwise we
will be picking out the religions we want to "accommodate"because
they model behavior or ideals we strive for. If the governmentis to
"acknowledge"religion it must also do so as a creation of human
culture that, like all human creations, is deeply compromised. The
First Amendment's establishmentclause prohibitsgovernmentfrom
endorsing any one group's religious vision for exactly that reason.
On the other hand, acknowledgingthe universalityof religion may
also requireacknowledgingthe religious natureof our public life and
conceding to the SouthernBaptist Conventionthat public education
does have an official religion-a religion aboutAmericanidentitythat
we all have an obligation to participatein and to reinventconstantly.
Scholars of religion should be warier than they have been of becoming party to the promotionof the legal "accommodation"of religion in generalor of any one definitionof what religion is. Legislative
accommodationof religion necessarily creates an establishmentand
establishmentis prohibitedby the First Amendment. The academic
study of religion can make a positive contributionto this debate by
inviting participantsfrom the legal community into a conversation
210
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
about human religion that is already struggling with problems of definition and of language and that wishes to affirm the existence of
human religion without establishing a particular definition of religion, without unconsciously theologizing. If the Supreme Court is
the privileged location for public discussion of the relationship of religion to government in the United States, that discussion would be
well-served by the participation of scholars of religion.
Washington & Lee University
Department of Religion
Lexington, VA 24450, USA
1 Bd. of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 114 S. Ct.
2481, 1994 US Lexis 4830 (1994).
2 Robert Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (New York: Macmillan, 1980), p. 495.
3
Aguilar v. Felton, 473 US 402 (1985).
4 1989 New York Laws, ch. 748.
5 Grumetv. New YorkState EducationDepartment,151 Misc. 2d 60, 63 (1992).
6 151 Misc. 2d at 64.
7 151 Misc. 2d at 65.
8 Grumetv. Board of Educationof Kiryas Joel VillageSchool District, 187 A.D.
2d 16 (1992).
9 187 A.D. 2d at 33.
10 Grumetv. Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District, 81 NY
2d 518, 536 (1993).
1 347 US 483 (1954).
12 81 NY 2d at 554.
13 81 NY 2d at 557.
14 It is that uneasiness to which accommodationists
point as evidence of overt
hostility to religion on the part of government.
15 An argumentcan be made that the constitutionalflaw lies in the incorporation
of the village, in drawingthe village's borderalong religious lines, not in the creation
of the school district.
16 An Amicus brief is a brief filed, with the permission of the Court, by a nonparty who has a "substantialinterest"in the matterbeing litigated.
17 Brief for the Petitionerat 40, Board of Educationof Kiryas Joel VillageSchool
District v. Grumet,No. 93-517.
211
18
They are not alone in this opinion. See, for example, Stephen Carter, The
Cultureof Disbelief: How AmericanLaw and Politics TrivializeReligious Devotion
(New York: Basic, 1993). See also, for a critical review of Carter'sbook: Winnifred
Fallers Sullivan, "Diss-ing Religion: Is Religion Trivialized in American Public
Discourse?" Journal of Religion, v. 75 (January1975), p. 69-79.
19 Brief of Amici Curiae in Supportof Respondentsby the National Coalition
for Public Educationand Religious Liberty and the NationalEducationAssociation,
et al., at 16.
20 1994 US Lexis 4830 at 7.
21 1994 US Lexis 4830 at 45.
22 1994 US Lexis 4830 at 53.
23 1994 US Lexis 4830 at 51.
24 1994 US Lexis 4830 at 113.
25 Ibid.
26 The
only case in which the Court has arguably recognized a corporate, as

opposed to an individual, right to free exercise of religion is Wisconsinv. Yoder,
406 US 205 (1972).
27 Brief of the SouthernBaptistConventionChristianLife Commissionas Amicus
Curiae SupportingPetitionersat 14.
28
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 US 668 (1983).
29
EmploymentDivision v. Smith,494 US 872 (1991).
30
Allegheny v. ACLU,492 US 573 (1989).
31 See footnote 28.
32 See footnote 29.
33 That shift has continued in the most recent First Amendment case decided
by the United States Supreme Court: Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the
Universityof Virginia, 115 S. Ct. 2510, 1995 US Lexis 4461 (1995).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baum, Geraldine, "Crossing the Line." Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1993,
Pt. E, p. 1.
Berger, Joseph, "Public School LeadershipFight Tearinga Hasidic Sect." New York
Times,January 3, 1994, Sec. A, p. 15.
Carter,Stephen, The Cultureof Disbelief: How AmericanLaw and Politics Trivialize
Religious Devotion. New York: Basic, 1993.
Harris,Lis, Holy Days: The Worldof a Hasidic Family. New York: Collier Books,
1985.
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Heilman, Samuel, Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-OrthodoxJewry. New York:

Schocken Books, 1992.
Heilman, Samuel and Menachem Friedman,"Religious Fundamentalismand Religious Jews: The Case of the Haredim"in: MartinMarty and Scott Appleby
(Eds), FundamentalismObserved. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991.
Hundert,Gershon David (Ed.), Essential Papers on Hasidism: Origins to Present.
New York: New York University Press, 1991.
Landau,David, Piety and Power: The Worldof Jewish Fundamentalism.New York:
Hill & Wang, 1993.
Lupu, Ira C., "Reconstructingthe EstablishmentClause: The Case Against Discretionary Accommodation of Religion." 140 University of PennsylvaniaLaw
Review 555-612 (1991).
"The Trouble with Accommodation." 60 George WashingtonLaw Review
--,
743-781 (1992).
- -, "The LingeringDeath of Separationism."62 George WashingtonLaw Review
230-279 (1994).
Mahler, Raphael, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontationin
Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the NineteenthCentury. Philadelphia:
The Jewish PublicationSociety of America, 1985.
Mintz, Jerome R., Hasidic People: A Place in the New World.Cambridge:Harvard
University Press, 1992.
Rabinowicz, HarryM., Hasidism: The Movementand Its Masters. Northvale, NJ:
Jason Aronson, 1988.
Safran, Bezalel (Ed.), Hasidism: Continuityor Innovation? Cambridge: Harvard
University Center for Jewish Studies, 1988.
Seltzer, Robert, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History.
New York: Macmillan, 1980.
Sharot, Stephen, Messianism, Mysticism, and Magic: A Sociological Analysis of
Jewish Religious Movements.Chapel Hill: Universityof North CarolinaPress,
1982.
Sullivan, WinnifredFallers, "Diss-ing Religion: Is Religion Trivializedin American
Public Discourse?" Journal of Religion, v. 75 (January1975) 69-79.
- -, Paying the WordsExtra: Religious Discourse in the Supreme Court of the
United States. Cambridge:HarvardUniversityCenter for the Study of World
Religions, 1994.
Zborowski, Mark and Elizabeth Herzog, Life is With People: The Culture of the
Shtetl. New York: Schocken Books, 1952.
"NO LONGER THE MESSIAH": US FEDERAL LAW

ENFORCEMENT VIEWS OF RELIGION IN CONNECTION
WITH THE 1993 SIEGE OF MOUNT CARMEL NEAR WACO,
TEXAS
LAWRENCEE. SULLIVAN
Summary
At the request of the United States Departmentof Justice and Departmentof the
Treasury,the author reviewed the actions of Federal law enforcement agencies in
Waco, Texas during the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian religious community
led by David Koresh, during which dozens of people died, including both federal
officers and civilians. This article analyzes the views of religion which predominate
among Federal law enforcementagents and which came to light during his review
of the Waco incident. Federal agents did not regardreligious belief as relevant to
their dealings with the Mount Carmelcommunity. NeitherPresidentBill Clinton nor
Attorney General Janet Reno raised the issue of religion in their policy discussions
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,not even during the review of the plans
for the last day, when CS-gas was inserted into the community building before it
burned. The article presents the relevance of religion to the development of the
incident as well as the absence of reliable informationabout religion in the federal
decision-making process. In a report published by the US Departmentof Justice,
the authorproposed recommendationsto remedy these systemic failures.
"David, you have had your fifteen minutes of fame... Vernon is

no longer the Messiah." (Rep: 294).
One minute after high noon on Monday April 19, 1993, Federal
Bureauof Investigation(FBI) negotiatorsbroadcastthis message over
loudspeakersto David Koresh (also known as Vernon Howell) and
to eighty-four Branch Davidian community members still alive in
Mount Carmel on the fifty-first day of a standoff with US federal
law enforcementagents. Six minutes later, fire broke out and raged
wind-driven through the house. By 12:11, fire had spread through
the entire building, to consume all inside.
For the six hoursbefore the firebrokeout, federalagentshad forced
CS gas into the building, following a plan approvedby US Attorney
NUMEN, Vol. 43
214
LawrenceE. Sullivan
General Janet Reno, a plan about which she had fully briefed President Bill Clinton (Rep: 273). CS gas is a riot control agent which
has been used by British troops in NorthernIreland. Its effects vary
among individuals and with differing concentrationsbut the effects
include: burningsensation in the eyes, nose, mouth, throat,and skin;
intolerance of light coupled with involuntarycontraction of eyelid
muscles; tightness of the chest associated with gripping pain; involuntarybreath-holdingand shortnessof breathcoupled with coughing
and sneezing; blistering;first and possibly second degree bums; and
a feeling of suffocation. Effects occur immediatelyand last from five
to twenty minutes after removal from the contaminatedarea (Rep:
Appendix J). In studies of the effects of CS gas, exposurehas mainly
occurred in open areas and has involved adults. The effects of high
concentrationsof CS gas in enclosed areas housing childrenhave not
been subject to systematic study. Noteworthy is the fact that small
children are incapable of using a gas mask, not simply because of
the poor fit when the apparatusis applied to the children's face but
because their lung capacity is insufficientto operate the mask properly.
Directed by Commander Rogers of the Hostage Rescue Team
(HRT), who was giving orders from his Abrams M-88 tank, two
otherM-60 tanks specially equippedwith injection systems shot fiftyfoot streams of liquid CS gas into openings in the building, and
four Bradley armoredmilitary vehicles fired 40 mm liquid-gas-filled
rounds from M79 grenade launchers(400 rounds were on-site).
FBI agent Byron Sage broadcastthe following message over the
loudspeakers:
We are in the process of placing tear gas into the building. This is not an assault.
We are not entering the building. This is not an assault. Do not fire your
weapons. If you fire, fire will be returned.Do not shoot. This is not an assault.
The gas you smell is a non-lethaltear gas. This gas will temporarilyrenderthe
building uninhabitable.Exit the compound now and follow instructions... You
are under arrest. This standoff is over. We do not want anyone hurt. Follow
all instructions... Gas will continue to be delivered until everyone is out of the
building (Rep: 286).
"No Longer the Messiah
215
The stated plan was to begin with small infusions of gas and proceed incrementallyover two or three days (Rep: 266, 280) in order
to minimize and control gas concentrations(Rep: 267). Over such
an extended period of time, according to the plan, life inside the
building would graduallybecome more unbearableand the residents
would be induced to leave their home. Action on the ground proceeded otherwise. In response to gunfirefrom inside the house when
the tanks and armoredcars approached,gas was insertedthroughall
open windows and doors and the pace of the gassing escalatedto such
a degree that by 7:45 a.m.-an hour and forty-five minutes into the
first day's activity-senior FBI officials requestedFBI headquarters
in QuanticoVirginiato locate more liquid-gasroundsfor the Bradleymounted grenade launchers. By 12:00 noon, the M-60 tanks, which
had been reloading their six gas cylinders (each containing liquid
enough for 15 fifty-foot bursts of gas mist), had executed a total of
six gassing operationsin six hours (Rep: 294).
According to the official reportsissued in October 1993, seventyfive BranchDavidiansdied in the buildingthatnoon, includingthirtythree minors below the age of twenty-one (sixteen of whom were
children five years of age or younger). The oldest Branch Davidian
community memberwho died that day was the Canadiancitizen Ray
Friesen, age 76, whose body was found in the chapel. There were
four senior citizens age 60 or older found dead in the aftermath.Like
many others, Friesen died of smoke and carbonmonoxide inhalation.
Others died of bums or suffocation.
Not all Davidians died as a direct result of fire. At least fifteen,
including seven females, died of gunshot wounds. No federal agents
fired on the compoundon April 19 nor did they fire duringthe fiftyday standoff. David Koresh, the group's leader, died in the communications room of a gunshot to the forehead, and Steve Schneider,
Koresh's principalassistant who had taken courses in religious studies at the University of Hawaii, died in the same room of a gunshot
wound to the mouth. In the closed bunkerarea, an infant was shot
in the head and a 5-6 year old girl was shot in the chest. Also in the
bunker,a 2-3 year old boy died of a stab wound to the chest and two
216
LawrenceE. Sullivan
other minors died of blunt-force head injuries. Among the total of

seventy-five Davidians who died on April 19, forty-two were female
and twenty-fourwere male (the sex of the remainingnumberof individuals consumed in the fire was undeterminedin autopsy reports).
Nine Davidians survived and were arrested,using warrantsprepared
the previous weekend (Rep: 341), either to stand trial for conspiring
to murderfederal agents, among othercharges, or to serve as material
witnesses to crimes.
The armedstandoffbegan in an explosion of violence on February
28, 1993 when the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(ATF) assembled the largest force in its history and executed its
largest raid. Some one hundredATF agents charged Mount Carmel,
a religious residence containing 125 people, in order to arrestDavid
Koresh on federal firearmsviolations. The element of surprisewas
consideredcrucial to the operation,but was lost when postmanDavid
Jones, associated with the Davidian community,fielded a request for
directions to Mount Carmel from a passing television news crew
seeking to cover the event. Through an acquaintanceof a TV station employee, the TV crew had received a tip "leaked"to them in
advance about the raid. (Reportersfrom the Tribune-Herald,a local
newspaper,had been tipped off weeks earlier about the raid by the
ATFthemselves and arrivedat the BranchDavidianresidence in three
cars.)
Postman Jones alerted his friends in the Davidian residence and
warnedthem of the approachingforces. An undercoverfederalagent,
Roberto Rodriguez, who was inside the compound at that very moment, understood clearly that David Koresh and his assistants had
been forewarnedaboutthe advancingofficers. Rodriguezshook hands
with Koresh, left Mount Carmel in a high state of anxiety, and informed his superiors that the operation was no longer a surprise.
Nonetheless, the decision was made to go ahead and continue the
"dynamic entry,"a decision that has been highly criticized in official reviews. Scores of ATF agents arrivedin open trailersused for
hauling livestock and ran out to take up assigned positions at various points aroundthe house. There was no adequatecontingency for
"No Longer the Messiah"
217
aborting the raid at this point. The cattle trailers provided no adequate cover nor could they be backed out of the drivewayto escape.
Gunfire broke out and escalated into heavy fire. Four ATF agents
were killed: Conway C. LeBleu, age 30; Todd W. McKeehan, 28;
Robert J. Williams, 27; and Steven D. Willis, 32. At least twenty
federal agents were wounded (in some reportstwenty-fourwere said
to be wounded). Inside Mount Carmel, five Davidians were killed
and an unknown numberwere wounded, including David Koresh.
During a cease-fire negotiated on that first morning of the initial
raid, the ATF removed the dead and wounded officers and the US
Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) assumed command of the operations. The cease-fire and stalemate continued over the next 51
days, during which time the FBI negotiators spoke with fifty-four
individuals inside Mount Carmel and arrangedfor the departureof
thirty-fiveDavidians (14 adults and 21 children). Between 250 and
300 FBI personnelwere presentin Waco at any given time duringthe
siege, along with hundredsof officers and agents from otheragencies.
In all, over seven hundredlaw enforcementpersonnelparticipateddirectly in the operation(Rep: 2).
Texas Rangers recovered305 firearmsfrom Mount Carmel. They
estimated that 1.9 million rounds of ammunitionhad either "cooked
off" during the fire or been spent throughfiring (Rep: 309) and they
found some 390,960 rounds of live ammunition(Rep: 311).
In June 1993, the US Departmentsof Justice and the Treasury
asked me to serve on a special ten-memberpanel of experts who
would review what happenedin Waco. In the same months that our
panel of experts was being briefed, separatefault-findingprocesses
were set in motion by the Departmentsof Justice and the Treasury,
under the direction of former US AttorneyEdwardS.G. Dennis Jr.,
Los Angeles police chief Willie Williams, the journalist and former
Senator Edwin O. Guthman,and former chief Watergateprosecutor
Henry S. Ruth Jr. Whereas these latter experts (Dennis, Williams
et al.) were charged to assess blame for what went wrong in Waco,
the experts on our panel were asked to make forward-lookingrecommendations, in the light of the Waco incident, to minimize the pos-
218
LawrenceE. Sullivan
sibility that anything of the sort would happen again. In particular,

we were to examine the quality of expertknowledge availableto law
enforcementas well as the role such informationplayed in decisionmaking, in order to recommend changes that could help avoid any
repetitionof such disastrousoutcomes in the future.
Did federallaw enforcementagencies obtainadequateexpertknowledge about religion in the course of the Waco siege? Clearly not.
Did they utilize such knowledge about religion in making crucial
decisions? The answer has to be a resounding,"No."
The reason for the negligible treatmentof religion is this: federal
agents did not view religious belief or behavior as informationrelevant to the situation. Judgingby the opinions expressedby agents and
law enforcement administratorsduring the review, it is unlikely that
federal law enforcement agencies place any more importancenow
on knowing the religious beliefs and behaviors of groups they encounter than they did before or duringthe incident at Waco. Indeed,
avoidance of knowledge about religion seems so ingrained that, in
the hundredsof interviews and debriefingsthey conducted in the aftermathof these incidents, Waco investigatorsput no questions about
religion to those who participatedin the events.
This article examines only one among several possible topics. It
does not focus, for example, on the beliefs and practices of David
Koreshand the BranchDavidians. The balance of this articleoutlines
views that are less often glimpsed and written about by scholars in
religious studies: the prevailing evaluations of religion in federal
law enforcement. Indeed, these views are not readily available to or
written about by scholars. The evaluationsof religion by US federal
law enforcement agents came to light in the Waco-relatedbriefings
and interviewsI attendedat the Departmentof Justice,the Department
of the Treasuryand the Headquartersand Academy of the Federal
Bureauof Investigation(FBI). They accountfor the lack of bona fide
consultationabout religion during the siege at Waco.
The ATF maintainedthat at no time before theirraid on the Davidian religious community-the largest raid in their agency's historydid they consult a religion expert about the group's beliefs and prac-
219
tices (Sullivan 1993: 3). It seems that the ATF had gathered information from former Davidians before the raid, however, as well as
from watchdog-groupswho kept data on the Davidians as a "cult,"
but the ATF made no effort to have such informationabout religion
screened or evaluatedby religion experts.
For their part, the FBI took little or no initiativein contactingreligion experts. Instead,agents took and, in some cases, returnedphone
calls from individualswho tried, on their own motion, to contact the
FBI. The FBI had developed neither in-house expertise nor a file of
outside experts to consult on religious matters,nor had the FBI developed any criteriato distinguisha religion expertfrom a quack. When
the siege at Waco began, therefore,the FBI had no way of navigating
the swelling pool of unsolicited informationcoming its way about
religion and the Davidians. In general, the FBI commanders and
decision-makers dismissed opinions that religion was an important
operatingfactor.
They even divertedand eventuallystaunchedthe trickleof opinions
coming from the FBI's own behavioralscientists. The CriminalInvestigative Analysis division of the National Centerfor the Analysis
of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy is the unit depicted in the film
Silence of the Lambs and it has specialized in generatingpsychological profiles of serial killers and psychopathologicalperpetratorsof
heinous violent crimes. In their memos of March 5, 7, and 8, these
behavioralscientists, most notably Peter Smerick, suggested that tacticians should take into account the Davidians' religious worldview.
The behavioralscientists' views of religion, in general, were psychologistic and their views of the Davidians, in particular,were drawn
from the unscreened informationthat the ATF obtainedfrom former
Davidian members, especially Marc Breault. Nevertheless, among
all the documents and reportsassociated with the incidents at Waco,
Peter Smerick and his colleagues were the only officials of any rank,
from field agent to the Attorney General and President, to go on
recordas to the importanceof the religious characterof the Davidian
community. Their early March memos underscoredthe relevance of
religion to the operation,emphasizing especially Koresh's prophetic
220
LawrenceE. Sullivan
theology of the seven seals of the book of Revelation. Here is an

excerpt from one of the memos writtenover a month before the final
conflagration.
He [Koresh] may have authorizedthis action [firing on the ATF agents instead
of surrenderingto them] to set into motion a chain of events which will verify,
to his followers, that his interpretationof the scriptures,in particular,the seven
seals discussed in Rev: 5:1-8:1, is correct; that the end is near... Koresh's
arrogant,recalcitrantdemeanor may be part of his scheme to manipulatelaw
enforcementcommanders,so as to provokea confrontation,in fulfillmentof his
interpretationof the 7 seals... The fourthseal is death. We are approachingthis
4th seal and it would appear that we may unintentionallymake his prophecy
come true, if we take what he perceives to be hostile or aggressive action ...
a mass suicide orderedby KORESHcannot be discounted... Insteadof moving
towardshim, we consider moving back ... this will show that he was wrong.
By March 9, it had been made clear to Smerick that his message

was not welcome. Though he was on-site in Waco, he was instructed
to route his memos through the bureaucracyand not submit them
directly to commanders in Waco. In disgust, Smerick left Waco
and, eventually, the FBI. No more talk of religion issued from the
behavioral scientists. After March 11, when Attorney General Janet
Reno took office, senior incident commandersput more aggressive
measures in place (such as turningoff water and electricity) in order
to "tightenthe noose" on the Davidians.
Even if the Branch Davidians (offshoots of Seventh Day Adventism) may not representreligious life in many Americancommunities,
the reaction of public officials and enforcementagencies may signal
the low value placed on religion as a public matter: reduction to
privatereadings,individualconcerns, and "unconventional"behavior.
The risk is that, in trivializing religion as a motivation,government
officials diminished their capacity to understandthe motives and actions of citizens.
Difficult as it may be to believe, religion as an issue was given little considerationin the formationof policy or strategyin Waco. The
ATF denies consulting religion experts prior to the February28 raid
(though they did gather informationabout the community's beliefs
and practices from formermembers,especially Breault). Neither the
221
ATF nor FBI, nor any other federal law enforcementagency had cultivated systematic expertise about religion within its ranks. They did
not have any list of outside experts or consultantsto turnto when religion is an element at issue in decision-making.No internaltraining
programsraised the relevance of religion at any level. In the training curriculafor the more than 70 federal law enforcementagencies
trainedby the Departmentsof Justice and the Treasury(chiefly at the
FBI Academy in Quantico,Virginiaand at the FederalLaw Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia) there is no treatmentof
religion as a relevantissue.
The absence of any considerationof religion as a constitutivefactor of social life makes it easier to understandwhy, at the very time
when the religious readingof realitybecame more pressingfor David
Koresh and the Branch Davidians inside their Mount Carmel home,
federal law enforcement officials attended less to religion as a motive for Davidian words and actions. As the crisis escalated, Koresh
and the Davidians became ever more given to religious language and
interpretation.The FBI commandersbecame ever more fed up with
and dismissive of what they called "Bible babble." In what proved
to be the last days before the final conflagration,Koresh intensified
his theological articulations,writing the beginning of a treatise on
the seven seals of the apocalypse. Here he set about to give his
reading of history and the place of his group and himself in it. He
calibratedPassover and its significance, dictated letters larded with
biblical references and theological interpretations.In his readingthe
federal siege itself was a dramaticsign of imminentapocalypse. Indeed, the whole build-upof an armory,which led the ATF to Mount
Carmel of February28, may have been a response to the actions of
law enforcement officers who carried on a three-days-long session
of target practice within earshot of Mount Carmel in March 1992.
Koreshtook this to be a "brazen"show of force and an ominous sign
of the impending apocalyptic showdown between the federal forces
of evil and his own assembled forces of good. From the very outset
until the bitterend, then, law enforcementagencies played scriptured
roles that they neither knew nor cared to know.
222
LawrenceE. Sullivan
No expert in religious studies was asked to review Koresh's religiously charged communications, not even his final letters. FBI
discussion with individuals who had an interest in religious studies
was limited to a few stray callers who initiatedcontact with the FBI.
The lack of adequate consultation was surprising, since there had
been official assurances to the public that there were consultations
with "cult experts." Since the fiery end to the stand-off, assurances
of the sort have been made by AttorneyGeneralReno, PresidentBill
Clinton, and senior law enforcement officials. As recently as July
5, 1995, on the national television news programNightline, Jeffrey
Jamar,the FBI Special Agent in Chargewho served as overall on-site
commanderin Waco and who has since retiredfrom the FBI, asserted
that federal law enforcement agents had consulted "all sorts of theologians and religion experts." How so? Who were these "experts"
and how were they consulted?
The official report claims that "the FBI did use religious experts
and theologians to a limited extent during the standoff... but most
of those contacts resulted in little useful information"(Rep: 186).
The reportlists seven such "religious/theologicalexperts"(Rep: 186),
presumablythe individualson whose advice the FBI drew most.
Notwithstandingthe list of seven, little or no bona fide consultation
with genuine expertstook place at all. Let us use the report'saccount
of the FBI contact with Dr. Glenn Hilbur, Chair of the Department
of Religion at Baylor University,to illustratethe problem:
"The FBI consulted more frequentlywith Dr. Hilbur throughout
the standoff than any other theologian. Dr. Hilbur made his entire
staff of 23 available to the FBI, and he and his staff had frequent
contact with the negotiatorsand the commanders.Baylor University
has one of the largest 'cult' reference and research facilities in the
country. It also had the advantageof being located nearby in Waco"
(Rep: 189).
In my conversationwith Dr. Hilbum several factors came to light
to redraw the picture a reader might form of FBI agents initiating
robust consultations with Dr. Hilbur and his twenty-three faculty
members or poring over a research library on "cults." In the first
223
place, it was Dr. Hilbur who called the FBI in order to put them
in contact with his expert faculty. He asked, in the second place,
as a matter of protocol and good order, that he be notified when
the FBI wished to contact one of his faculty members. No such
contact was ever made. Dr. Hilbur insisted to me that, since he was
neither a theologian nor a Biblical scholar (thoughhe did loan agents
some Biblical commentariesof his own), he pleaded with the FBI
in each subsequent conversationto make contact with members of
his faculty who had Biblical expertise as well as knowledge of the
Branch Davidians. To his knowledge, the FBI never followed up on
his urgent suggestions that they contact genuine experts in the points
at issue. Whether or not Baylor University actually possesses an
especially large researchlibraryon "cults,"it appearsthat the books
were at that time being transferredfrom one facility to anotherand
were consequently boxed and unavailablefor use by the FBI.
More curious is the inclusion of Dr. Philip Arnold of the Reunion
Institutein Houston, Texas as an expert consulted by the FBI. I met
with Dr. Arnold. He has publisheda recordof his experienceat Waco.
He did everythinghe could imagine to gain a hearingfrom the FBI,
going so far as to enterone of theirpress conferencesto questionthem
about their understandingof the Seven Seals Koresh was discussing
(Arnoldwas ejected from the pressroom),butto no avail. Ingeniously,
Dr. Arnold and Dr. James Tabor,both specialists in the eschatology
of the Second Temple period, caught the attention of the Branch
Davidians by airing their discussion of the biblical theology of the
Seven Seals on a local radio stationthatthe Davidiansfollowed. Only
when Steve Schneider (Koresh's assistant)requesteda taped copy of
the March 17 programdid the FBI see that Arnold'stape was brought
to the Davidians by their lawyer, Dick De Guerin. Both Arnold and
Taborexpressedto me theirfrustrationat the inabilityto communicate
with the FBI in spite of their strenuousefforts. Arnold's is the first
name on the list of experts contactedby the FBI (Rep: 186).
The other five contacts with "experts"are even more incidental
and fruitless than those with Hilbur and Arnold. Michael Haynes of
Dallas, Texas, for instance, offered to negotiate directly with Koresh
224
LawrenceE. Sullivan
by promisingto convey Koresh'smessage to the world. The telephone

conversationconsisted in the FBI declining such an offer. Can this
qualify as a consultationwith an expert? In anotherphone call listed
as one of the contacts with religious/theologicalexperts, two pastors
in Bowling Green Kentucky, Robert Wallace and John Fredericks,
advised the FBI on March 30 to consult experts in eschatology. The
FBI did not heed their advice, but the phone call itself is listed among
the seven contacts with experts.
The degree of consultationwith experts broughtto light in official
reports is minimal and cursory. Contacts occurredby happenstance
ratherthanby relevantcompetence. Whatevercontactwith volunteers
there may have been initially, it was found increasingly irrelevant
as the noose tightened. In the end, however, the intense theological commitmentof Davidians to Koresh and his religious ideas may
better explain what happened than the FBI picture of Koresh as a
dissembling con man and his followers as psychologically weak but
religiously uncommittedsheep.
The final letters from Koreshwere transcribedonto 14 handwritten
pages by Judy Schneider, Steve Schneider's wife. Like other wives
and daughtersat Mount Carmel,Judy Schneider,with the permission
of her husband, had sexual relations with Koresh and bore him a
child. Koresh's letters in her handwritingwere delivered to the FBI
on April 9 and 10. They consist of page afterpage of biblical citation
and exegesis along with leading questions about the meaning of key
phrases and concepts (often underlinedfor emphasis). Presumably
these pages outlined Koresh's current theological position and his
followers' commitmentto it.
I begin to do my "strangework", "a work you will not believe though it be
told you" Isaiah 28... "the seals will either save you or destroy you... The fire
of thine enemies shall devour them." Isaiah 26:11... I warn you, do not hurt
My Lamb (Psalm 2). For out of His side will come "brightbeams"... Show
mercy and kindness and you shall receive mercy and kindness!... You have a
chance to learn My salvation. Do not find yourselves to be fighting against
me... My hand made heaven and earth. My hand also shall bring it to the end.
Read Psalm 50 and learn to be wise. Respect your brother David and those
who have learned of Me from Him... Please listen, show mercy and learn of
225
the marriageof the Lamb... Who are you fighting against? The law is mine,
the truth is mine... Will you turn back the punishmentsof My hand? No!...
Do you know My seals? Do you dare call Me a liar? Look and see into my
"righthand"I AM your life and your death... Look and see, you fools, you will
not proceed much further... Do you think you have power to stop My Will?
I have told My prophetsregarding"time no longer." My "seven thunders"are
to be revealed (Revelation 10:7). Is it your judgment that time is not now?!
Your judgment will not stand. Read Psalm 2. Do you want me to laugh at
your pending torments?... I will surely show you the meaning of Psalms 18,
unless you open your eyes and not your mouth. Fear Me and "the hour of
My judgment,"for it has come... Learn from David My seals or, as you have
said, bear the consequences. I forewarnyou, the Lake Waco area of Old Mount
Carmel will be terriblyshaken. The waters of the lake will be emptied through
the brokendamn (sic). The heavensare calling you to judgment. Please consider
these tokens of great concern.
Koresh then (again) adds lengthy quotations from the Book of

Revelation, chapters 19 and 20 and Psalm 45, including:
And I saw heaven opened and beheld a white horse; and he that sat upon him
was called Faithful and True and in righteousnesshe doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire... And I saw an angel standing in the sun...
And I saw the beast and the kings of the earthand their armiesgatheredtogether
to make war againsthim that sat on the horse and againsthis army,and the beast
was taken and with him the false prophetthat wrought miracles before him...
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone and the
remnantwere slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse... Hearken,O
daughter,and consider, and incline thine ear: forget thine own people and thy
father's house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord,
and worship thou him ... the virgins her companions that follow her shall be
broughtunto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought:they shall
enter the king's palace. Instead of thy fathersshall be thy childrenthou mayest
make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be rememberedin all
generations: thereforeshall the people praise thee for ever and ever.
K.J.V.
These dictations provide biblical interpretations of Koresh's wounds.

In the light of the chosen Biblical quotations, Koresh's injured hand
and side appear as wonders of power and not weakness. Arguably
such exegeses were being worked out for the benefit of Koresh's fol-
226
LawrenceE. Sullivan
lowers, at the very least his scribe Judy Schneider, mother of his
offspring and wife of his right-handman.
These letters were included in the briefingdocumentspresentedto
AttorneyGeneralReno for the culminatingdecision to insert gas into
the compound. On April 18 PresidentClinton was also fully briefed
(Rep: 273). In the briefing documentation,the letter plays the role
of a last straw, measuringKoresh's intransigenceand provokingthe
FBI to escalate their intervention. But there is no acknowledgment
of its thoroughgoingreligious content, worldview, and significance.
In answer to my questions, I was informed that religion was not an
issue of discussion in the final briefings or decision-making policy
meetings of the AttorneyGeneral,Presidentor other senior officials.
Still, it is clear from the published official reportthat discussion of
the Seven Seals played a key role in a two-hourtelephone discussion
that Acting Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell held with
FBI negotiator Byron Sage on April 15. Nearly one month earlier
agent Sage, a born-againChristian,had had a heated discussion with
David Koresh about the book of Revelation and the interpretationof
the Seven Seals. For Sage the conversationwas a turning point in
the process of the stand-off. Sage referred to the conversation as
"the Dutch Uncle" conversationand in it he felt that he succeeded in
demonstratingthat Koresh'swas not the only way of interpretingthe
scripture. A loudspeakersystem was then erected by federal agents
to broadcast the taped theological conversationinto Mount Carmel
so that Koresh's followers could hear an alternativeexplanation of
the scriptures. (Later the sound system was used to broadcastdisconcerting sounds, including TibetanBuddhist monk chants). In the
final days before the April 19 fire, the conversationabout the Seven
Seals between Hubbell and Sage was key to ruling out all non-lethal
options for action other than CS gas (Rep: 270).
With theology and Biblical quotationbeing expressedat every turn,
how is it, then, that there was a general lack of regardfor religion as
an issue on the part of federal law enforcement?
The agents' resistance to the suggestion that a knowledge about
religion is valuable seems overdeterminedin several ways. Lack of
227
familiaritywith religious motivationsand behaviorsallowed some of

the agents interviewed in the course of my review to hold the view,
for instance, that each group with whom they come into contact is
sui generis, a religion unto itself. In this view, no amount of previous study or familiarity with religious history would help when
such groups come into conflict with law enforcement. Similarly,
other agents interviewed at the FBI Academy in Quantico held that
once law-abiding religious groups with traditionalreligious patterns
fall into conflict with law enforcement, they spin from their traditional moorings, their behaviorbecomes less patterned,less familiar,
and more likely to lurch into unpredictableaction. The crisis itself
precipitatesa "new religion" never seen before. In such precipitous
circumstances,the agents theorized,"religion"only serves as a coverlanguage or disguise for criminal activity. In such cases, no amount
of study of religion would help, since it is a new, unpredictable"religion" that evolves out of the situationof conflict itself. The encounter
with law enforcementbecomes the determiningcontext, not the context of a religious tradition.
Still anotherview that overdeterminedresistanceto examining religion was a variationon the theme of the sui generis characterof
the religious groups: many believers claim to join groups like the
Branch Davidians because of the unique views presentedby a figure
like Koresh. According to this line of overdeterminedreasoning, no
religion expert would have knowledge about this heretoforeunseen,
unique religious view. It exists only in the head of an eccentric, irrational individual. Therefore, it is fruitless to consult with religion
studies experts. Agents interviewed seemed unaware that such circumstances as the transformationof traditionsinto new movements
and the claims to uniqueness(as well as the interpretationsthe agents
themselves held of these circumstances)possess a long history,which
has been the subject of study in order to discern patternsin it.
The fact is, without taking into considerationthe religious motives
of the actors, the attitudesand actions of the participantsis miscast
in the terms of a "hostageand rescue operation."The dispositions of
religious "non-hostages"do not fit the presentaction-modelsof units
228
LawrenceE. Sullivan
like the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams and Hostage
Rescue Teams (HRT) and thus present a conceptual mystery and
a tactical problem for law enforcement. Not fearing death or the
danger to themselves, the very presence of religious devotees in the
crisis becomes a hazardto agents bent on "rescuing"them duringthe
siege.
The mismatch of "rescue"concepts and "hostage"terminology to

the actual religious situation of devotees dedicated to staying where
they are is a measure of the need for a new paradigm,a new way
of thinking about these situations. The tendency to think of religion
as a largely privateconcern leaves analysts unawareand unprepared
for the mannerin which religion mobilizes groups into communities
of coordinatedactions, whetherthose actions be liturgicalspectacles,
mass movements, or militaristicoperations.
A privatized notion of religion underlies another overdetermined
reason for resistance to religious studies. Law enforcement agents
said they did not see the value of exploringreligious motives because
there could be as many religious motives as there are individuals.
Religion was a unique and private affair and only indirectly linked,
throughelaborateprivaterationalizations,to public actions that come
into conflict with the law. These agents tendedto overlook the way in
which religion, throughits dense symbolic expressions and interpretations, bundles together individual motives-sometimes even contradictoryunderstandings-into highly energized communities with
shared goals and actions.
Lack of careful knowledge aboutreligions among law enforcement
agencies may reflect a broadercultural ignorance about the nature,
role, and importance of religion echoed in other realms of public
policy and cultural analysis: corporate boardrooms, congressional
staff, newsrooms of media networks and newspapers.
In response to suggestions that the Departmentsof Justice and the
Treasury foster better knowledge about religion among federal law
enforcement agencies, agents I met with voiced reluctanceto factor
religion into their considerationof groups such as those in Waco and
resistance to building more reliable resources of knowledge about
229
religion. The following were the most frequently cited reasons to

fend off any suggestion for fosteringbetterknowledge aboutreligion:
1. Expert consultantsneed to be acculturatedto the world of law
enforcement before they can be useful; religious studies experts are
not acculturatedto law enforcementneeds and modes of operation.
Though this concernreflectsthe practicalwisdom that advice is taken
best when it is delivered in familiar and accessible terms, it also reflects the natural tendency to take outside advice mostly when it
confirms opinions already held and introducesno new or troubling
perspectives. Since there are no pools of expertconsultantsfrom religious studies currentlycooperatingwith federallaw enforcement,this
argumentis a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents religious studies
experts from gaining the acculturationthat renderstheir advice most
valuable and credible.
2. There are legal constraintson intelligence gathering,especially
surveiling law-abidingreligious groups. Resistance on these grounds
arises from the conviction that each religion is a singular manifestation incomparableto any others. In fact, many patternedfeatures
have been noted in the worldview and practice of religious groups,
in the psychology of religious leaders and the behaviorof their devotees, and in the organizationof social groups. To know more about
religion does not requiretransgressingthe law to gather intelligence.
University curriculain religious studies are groundedon information
publicly available in librariesand bookstores.
3. Troublesomeleaders of "cults"are not genuinely religious people but con men leading dupes. Many agents expressed this view
that Koresh did not believe the religious ideas he preached to others. His followers, being psychologically vulnerable, were conned
by his strong personality. In several briefings agents expressed the
view that, in their line of work, "religionwas often only a cover"-a
dodge or smoke-screenfor paranoidbehavior,criminalpathology,derangement, or self-interestednon-religious pre-existing motivations.
It is possible that a view like this is widely shared in the federal
enforcementagencies and perhapseven by the public at large. Still,
it is not clear what process of evaluation, as a matter of standard
230
LawrenceE. Sullivan
operating procedure,leads to this conclusion. That there be such a

process of evaluationin cases like Waco seems crucial. By not taking the role of religion seriously in the first place, events at Waco
arrived at predictable results overdeterminedby blind spots in the
process itself: the dismissal of religion as an issue, against all appearancesto the contrary,led agents to underestimatethe deep-seated
religious motives of the leader and the followers. As a result, they
failed to anticipate the religiously-motivatedresponses to their own
interventions.
4. Is religion too good for criminalityor too irrelevant?Some of
the attitudesof federal agents towardreligion in our discussions were
surprisinglypersonal. Two opposing attitudes toward religion surfaced throughoutour briefings. Takenseparatelyas well as together,
these opposing attitudescould contributeto the inclinationnot to take
religion seriously into account. One view thinks of itself as sympathetic to religion and sees authenticreligion as too good to be involved
in conflicts with the law, thus sparingauthenticreligion from the taint
of criminality. The second view holds itself to be more secular and
less sympathetic toward religion. In this second view, religion is a
spent historicalforce, whose irrationalityand misplaced concreteness
can betterbe explained in non-religiousterms-economic or psychological terms, for instance. Thus, in this latterview, there is no need
to consider seriously religion in se as a shaper of social reality. The
first, more sympathetic, view of religion is motivated by a wish to
preserve the softness of religion, not believing that religious convictions may bring individuals into harsh conflict with the law. This
view may prove to be short-sightedin the light of even recent revolutionary confrontationsof religiously motivatedgroups with the legal
establishments of Eastern Europe, India, and the Philippines (never
mind historical movements in so many venues). It may be blind as
well to the role of religion in protests against the legal status quo
in the US, from the abolition of slavery and the restorationof civil
rights to minorities, to abortion. In order to safeguardthe rights of
religious citizens to act freely in the public square, there may be a
need of a betterunderstandingof the role of religion in society on the
231
part of federal law enforcement. The second view, less sympathetic

toward religion, also trivializes religion by recasting religious motivations as essentially non-religious ones, translatingreligious claims
into languages of self-interestwhich are only political, economic, or
psychological in nature. Waco and incidents like it indicate that this
view may be misguided.
5. Focusing on religion as a central aspect of law enforcement
crises created conflicts with personal views and emotions. Some
agents statedbluntly that religion was the subjectmost likely to eliminate objective distance from decisions called for in a crisis. When
religion is at issue, unlike othertopics, they said, it provedmost difficult to sort out personalviews from more objective opinions, because
religion dredges up strongemotions, basic orientationsto values, and
personal feelings toward religion. Probing religious motives and realities also awakensdisturbingresidualcommitmentsor resentments.
Having been educated in the rigorous religious school system of a
denomination he still embraced, for example, one agent claimed it
was difficult to sustain a defensible distinctionbetween his religious
education, which he still cherished, and the coercive acculturation
children received in Mount Carmel. Why should one be approvedof
and the other be styled as abusive indoctrination,brain-washing,or
mind control, the agent asked? He found the question and the arbitrarinessof any answer disturbingand challenging to fundamental
assumptions about his own characterformation. Not a direction to
take in the chaos of a crisis.
6. Federal law enforcement agents tended to blur the categories
of study about religion and devotion to it. When tacticians raised
the possibility of enlisting help from religious studies experts in the
course of negotiations, the suggestion was taken to mean a call for
involving clergy in negotiations and was waved off with allusions to
the ineffectiveness of clergy in speaking to potential suicides.
7. Agents believed that personal study is sufficient. Some agents
held that there were enough agents interestedin the study of religion
for personal reasons and that these individuals served law enforcement needs sufficiently. The problem is, without any scrutiny or
232
LawrenceE. Sullivan
coordinationof such homegrownexpertise, how reliable is unmonitored self-study? Is such personalknowledge comprehensiveenough
to serve as a strategicresourcefor federal agencies with nation-wide
responsibilities? It does not appearthat informationon those agents
who have cultivatedtheirknowledge aboutreligion has been gathered
and coordinatedinto any databaseavailable to law enforcement. At
the least, such a step would be helpful to those who must try to locate
special knowledge in a time of crisis.
Unlike the agents' high awarenessof the relevance of certain subjects of study, such as psychology and its subdivisions,agents seemed
less awarethat religious studies was a field distinguishablefrom seminary studies of theology or the bible.
In the aftermathof Waco, Deputy AttorneyGeneralPhilip B. Heymann proposed changes in federal law enforcementtraining, operations, crisis management,and policy to reflect the need for a better
understandingof religion. "Our religious studies experts point out
that law enforcementcan easily undervaluethe strengthand sincerity
of the convictions of people whose beliefs are not familiar. Often religious and political motivationsand their likely effect on behaviorare
crucialfactors in law enforcementdecisions... I recommenda careful
review of the adequacy of training in light of the recommendations
of our religious studies experts"(Les: A-12). "[O]urtrainingof law
enforcementagents [should] include materialdesigned to alert agents
to the potential importanceof differences in views among Americans
on such subjects as religion and political ideology. Those who provide this trainingshould themselves become expert in the range and
diversity of beliefs held by Americans-including the more unconventional beliefs-and should be available for advice when events
like this occur. As to particulargroups, like the Branch Davidians,
we should consult with academic scholars for detailed information
that may be useful to negotiatorsor others. But this requiresus to be
able to identify, in advance of the event, reputableexperts who are
willing to help, so that we may quickly turn to them for advice. For
this, federal law enforcementmust, our experts urge, begin to make
contact with a wide range of experts in the social sciences-from
233
religion to sociology to psychiatry-so that we can very promptly

enlist their assistance when needed." (Les: 11). Regarding crisis
management,Heymann insisted that the FBI depart from its strong
tradition of assigning command of an incident on the basis of territorial jurisdiction alone. He urged that a select group of senior
field commanders,trained to call upon special experts, be assigned
to command. Furthermore,Heymannrecommendedthat new protocols be developed for crisis and negotiation situations which would
integrateinput from relevantexperts (Les: A-11). Most importantly,
perhaps, Heymann urged that processes for managing crises be developed which would ensure that the on-site commanderwould be
made aware of the full range of strategic options and their consequences (Les: A-11), as evaluatedalso by social science and relevant
academic experts. He furtherrecommendedthat major policy decisions by the expert field commanderbe reviewed by authoritiesat
the highest level-the Director of the FBI and the AttorneyGeneral
(Les: 12)-and that high-rankingofficials be held accountable for
the results (Les: A-5). Whether Heymann's recommendationswill
ever be fully implementedremainsan open question. His resignation
was accepted by AttorneyGeneralReno some time after Heymann's
recommendationson Waco were filed. A generallack of "good chemistry" between them was cited as the reason for his departure.
The goal in fostering more and better knowledge is to increase
the capacity to make the best informed, most responsible decisions
called for in time of need. Cultivating more adequate knowledge
of religious studies will focus thought,provide options to consider in
times of crisis, and furnishan additionalvocabularyfor analyzingand
interpretinghuman motives, ideas, and actions. Waco has broughtto
public attention,with unusualforce, the need to rethinkthe way law
enforcementwill deal with religious groups.
The US House of Representativesheld hearingsto review the Waco
incident in the summerof 1995. Waco may prove to be one of those
incidents which is periodically re-airedbecause both the end results
and the means of arriving at them prove inherentlyunsettling and
unacceptable. Even as the House of Representativeswas conducting
234
LawrenceE. Sullivan
its hearings, US Senators vowed to take up a Waco investigation

of their own in the future. The Waco incident is widely believed
to be a rallying event in the mobilization of civilian militias in the
United States. There is a question whetherthe bombing of a Federal
Office building in OklahomaCity on April 19, 1995 is linked to the
incendiaryend of the Waco standoffthat took place exactly two years
earlier.
Because of the inabilityto rendera fully satisfactoryaccount,Waco
is not likely to receive a final accounting soon.
Harvard University Center
LAWRENCEE. SULLIVAN
for the Study of World Religions

42 Francis Avenue
Cambridge,MA 02138, USA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Exp Recommendationsof Expertsfor Improvementsin Federal Law Enforcement
After Waco. Washington,DC: US Departmentof Justice, October 1993.
Rec Recommendationsof Expertsfor Improvementsin Federal Law Enforcement
After Waco. Washington,DC: US Departmentof Justice, October 8, 1993.
Les Philip B. Heymann (Deputy Attorney General), Lessons of Waco: Proposed
Changes in Federal Law Enforcement. Washington,DC: US Departmentof
Justice, 1993.
Rep Report to the Deputy AttorneyGeneral on the Events at Waco,Texas February
28 to April 19, 1993. Washington,DC: US Departmentof Justice, October 8,
1993.
Sullivan, Lawrence E., Recommendationsto the US Departmentsof Justice and the
Treasuryconcerning Incidentssuch as the Branch Davidian Standoffin Waco,
Texas. Washington,DC: US Departmentof Justice, October 8, 1993.
Trep Report of the Departmentof the Treasuryon the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms Investigation of Vernon WayneHowell also known as David
Koresh. Washington,DC: US Departmentof Justice, September 1993.
BOOK REVIEW
WINNIFREDFALLERSSULLIVAN,Paying the Words Extra. Religious Dis-
course in the Supreme Court of the United States-Cambridge, MA:

HarvardUniversity Press (distributionfor the HarvardUniversity Center for the Study of World Religions) 1995 (212 p.) US$ 24.95, ISBN
0-945454-06-6 (cloth); US$ 14.95, ISBN 0-945454-07-4 (paper).
What a marveloustitle for such a splendid book. If HumptyDumpty had
to pay words extra because he employed them in extraordinaryways, surely
the Supreme Court and American people will have to do the same as they
struggle with the meaning and the role of religion under the conditions of
the American Constitution.
This is an unusual book-required reading for all students and practitioners of law and of religion. It brings to the discussion fresh insight and
a clear agenda. Her method reflects her dual training in law and in graduate work in religion. She begins with a highly informativeand carefully
nuanced analysis of the relation between law and religion with particular
attentionto the American scene.
She employs the case method as she turnsher attentionto the creche case,
Lynch vs. Donnely and proceeds to rehearse,analyze and critique the three
major opinions of the justices in light of the generalizationsshe articulated
in her discussion of law and religion. Further,she engages in a comparative
analysis of chief justice WarrenBerger's Lynch-Donnelyopinion with that
of the Japanese Supreme Court on a similar problem. In that the Japanese
Constitutionwas written by American lawyers under the aegis of General
MacArthur,this offers a fascinatingcomparison.
Professor Sullivan has a clear agenda. She intends to help create a new
public climate in the American context so that a fresh public discourse on
law and religion can emerge. Convinced that the present situation with regard to the religion and state questionis fraughtwith dangerand frustration,
she lays bear the reasons for the impasse and offers provocativeand stimulating suggestions for the first steps in a new direction. The problem is
the way the experts, both lawyers and religionists, and the public at large
NUMEN,Vol.43
236
Book review
understandand think about religion. The way the law has been cast in our
constitution and the way it has been interpretedpresent problems enough,
but the way all Americans think about and understandreligion exacerbates
the situation considerably. Though religion in some sense transcendsculture, it is embeddedin culture,carriedthroughit and so in that sense created
by it. Sullivan argues that the history of religions discipline offers the best
possibility of coming to grips with the religious dimension of human experience so that religion can be seen "as universal,as dynamic, as embodied,
as dangerous,and as a location for the critique of modernity..." (34)
Her analysis of the threejustices' opinions in the creche case demonstrates
that there are at least three utterly different views of religion at work. In
itself that is not a bad thing, but the problem is that these conceptions are
unacknowledged. Acknowledgementis a key concept for Sullivan, both in
relation to others and in relationto self. In a highly complex and pluralistic
culture in which religion and law have changed along with culture, as they
always do, it is imperativethat human beings be aware of that fact.
If American culture is to navigate the treacherouswaters of the twenty
first century,it is necessary that it have a betterunderstandingof religion of
law and its mutualinterrelatedness.That understandingmust be richer,more
complex, more open, more subtle. It must reflect the total reality in which
humans in general and Americans in particularnow live. From whence
can this come? Sullivan argues, convincingly, that it must come from the
education and practice of lawyers and religionists so that in concert they
will help to create a new discourse which will become central to the public
square. My one worry about this otherwise laudablevision is the role of the
public media. Perhapstheir role in the discourse is equally importantto that
of the lawyers and religionists. Unfortunately,they are even less informed
on the issues under discussion. PerhapsProfessor Sullivan's splendid book
will provoke a discussion in this area as well.
The University of Chicago
Divinity School
1025 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
JERALDBRAUER
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Periodicals
MonumentaNipponica, 50 (1995), 4.
Przegla,dReligioznawczy, 175 (1995), 1; 176 (1995), 2; 177 (1995), 3.
Nidan. Journalof the Departmentof HinduStudies & IndianPhilosophy. University
of Durban-Westville,7 (1995).
TattvaViveka. Forumfur Wissenschaft,Philosophieund spirituelleKultur,(1995), 3.
History of Religions, 35 (1995), 2
GregorySchopen, Monastic Law Meets the Real World: A Monk's Continuing
Right to InheritFamily Propertyin Classical India
Jane Ackerman,Stories of Elijah and Medieval CarmeliteIdentity
David Scott, BuddhistResponses to Manichaeism:MahayanaReaffirmationof
the "MiddlePath"?
WhalenLai, Unmaskingthe Filial Sage-King Shun: Oedipusat Anyang Whalen
Lai
Book Reviews
Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 7 (1995), 3
Hans H. Penner,Why does semantics matterin the study of religion?
Discussion:
AnthonyJ. Blasi, The troublewith religious studies: Why scientific claims
in the study of religions should be left to symbolic interactionistsand other
scientists
RobertA. Segal, In defense of "the Religion school"
AnthonyJ. Blasi, Commentson RobertA. Segal's defense of "theReligion
school"
Responses
Peter Harrison, Religion and the religions in the age of William and Mary:
A response to David A. Pailin
WayneProudfoot, "Religious discourse and first person authority":A response to TerryF. Godlove
NUMEN, Vol. 43
238
Reply TerryF Godlove, Constraintson interpretation:A reply to WayneProudfoot
Religion, 25 (1995), 2
Bernice Martin, New Mutationsof the ProtestantEthic among Latin American
Pentecostals
Paul Freston, Pentecostalismin Brazil: A Brief History
Rowan Ireland, Pentecostalism,Conversions,and Politics in Brazil
Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola, Origins, Development and Perspectives of
La Luz del Mundo Church
Paul C. Johnson, Shamanismfrom Ecuadorto Chicago: A Case Study in New
Age Ritual Appropriation
MarkS. Cladis, The FrenchConnection: Crea, Mauss, and the Academic Study
of Religion in the USA (Special report)
Book Reviews
Religion, 25 (1995), 3
lan Harris, BuddhistEnvironmentalEthics and Detraditionalization:The Case
of EcoBuddhism
Knut A. Jacobsen, The AnthropocentricBias in Eliade's Interpretationof the
Samkhya and the Samkhya-YogaSystems of Religious Thought
Brian Bocking, FundamentalRites? Religion, State,Educationandthe Invention
of Sacred Heritagein post-ChristianBritain and pre-WarJapan
Eliot Borenstein,Articles of Faith: The Media Response to MariaDevi Khristos
Massimo Introvigne,Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedyof the Solar Temple
Book Reviews
Religion, 25 (1995), 4
David Martin, Sociology, Religion and Secularization:an Orientation
Helmut Waldmann,Religion in the Service of an Elite: a Sociologically Defined
Imposture. The Case of Ancient Sparta
James A. Cox, Ancestors, the Sacred and God: Reflections on the Meaning of
the Sacred in ZimbabweanDeath Rituals
Srdjan Vrcan, A Christian Confession Possessed by Nationalistic Paroxysm:
The Case of SerbianOrthodoxy
Leslie J. Francis and Thomas E. Evans, The Psychology of ChristianPrayer:
A Review of EmpiricalResearch (Survey Article)
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239
Books
Jonker,Gerdien, The Topographyof Remembrance. The Dead, Traditionand Collective Memory in Mesopotamia. Studies in the History of Religions. NUMEN
book series (edited by H.G. Kippenbergand E. Thomas Lawson), vol. 68Leiden, New York, Koln, E.J. Brill, 1995, 284 p., US$ 98.25, ISBN 90-0410162-4 (cloth).
Toorn, Karel van der/ Becking, Bob/ Horst, Pieter W. van der (Eds), Dictionary of
Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD)-Leiden, New York, Koln, E.J. Brill,
1995, US$ 128.75, ISBN 90-04-10313-9 (cloth).
Nasstr6m, Britt-Mari,Freyja-the Great Goddess of the North. Lund Studies in
History of Religions, 5-Lund, Departmentof History of Religions, University
of Lund, 1995, 244 p., SEK 182.00, ISBN 91-22-01694-5 (paper).
Wasserstrom,Steven M., Between Muslim and Jew. The Problem of Symbiosis
under Early Islam-Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1995, 300 p.,
$ 45.00, ISBN 0-691-03455-9 (cloth).
Al-Assiouty, Sarwat Anis, Civilisations de repressionet forgeursde livres sacresParis, Letouzey & An6, 1995, 415 p., F 128.00, ISBN 2-7063-0198-8 (pbk.).
Oldmeadow,Harry,Mircea Eliade and Carl Jung: 'Priests without Supplices'? Reflections on the Place of Myth, Religion and Science in Their Work. Studies in
WesternTraditions,OccasionalPapers, 1-Bendigo, Departmentof Humanities,
La Trobe University, 1995, 43 p., ISBN 0-909977-17-4 (paper).
Shankaracharya,Experienceof Oneness (Advaitanubhuti).Sanskrittext with translation and introductionby Lars ChristianIms-Oslo, FutharkForlag, 1995, 48 p.,
ISBN 82-7594-004-4 (paper).
Rein, Anette, Tempeltanz auf Bali. Rejang-der Tanz der Reisseelen-Hamburg,
Lit, 1994, 230 p., ISBN 3-8258-2089-0 (pbk.).
Fless, Friederike,Opferdienerund Kultmusikerauf stadtromischenhistorischenReliefs. Untersuchungenzur Ikonographie,Funktionund Bedeutung-Mainz am
Rhein, VerlagPhilipp von Zabern,1995, 123 p. + 46 plates, DM 148.00, ISBN
3-8053-1601-1 (cloth).
Overbeck,Franz,Werkeund NachlaB,Band 5: Kirchenlexicon.Texte. Ausgewahlte
ArtikelJ-Z. In Zusammenarbeitmit MarianneStauffacher-Schaub
herausgegeben
von Barbaravon Reibnitz-Stuttgart und Weimar,Verlag J.B. Metzler, 1995,
XX + 762 p., DM 148.00, ISBN 3-476-00966-1 (cloth).
Vik0r, Knut S., Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge. Muhammadb. 'Ali al-Sanusi
and his Brotherhood-London, Hurst& Company,1995, 310 p., ? 37.50, ISBN
1-85065-218-X (cloth).
240
Langer, Erick, and Robert H. Jackson (Eds), The New Latin American Mission
History. Latin American Studies Series-Lincoln and London, University of
Nebraska Press, 1995, 212 p., $ 35.00, ISBN 0-8032-2911-9 (cloth); $ 16.95,
ISBN 0-8032-7953-1 (pbk.).
Cristianismoprimitivoy religiones mistericas,by Jaime Alvar,Jose MariaBlazquez,
SantiagoFemrandezArdanaz,GuadelupeL6pez Monteagudo,ArmindaLozano,
Clelia MartinezMaza and Antonio Pifiero. Colecci6n Historia"SerieMayor"Madrid,Ediciones Catedra,1995, 546 p., ISBN 84-376-1346-9.
Crumlin-Pedersen,Ole and BirgitteMunchThye, The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric
and Medieval Scandinavia. Papers from an InternationalResearch Seminar
at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, 5th-7th May 1994. Publications from the National Museum. Studies in Archaelogy & History, vol. 1Copenhagen, The National Museum, 1995, 196 p., DKK 236.00, ISBN 8789384-01-6 (pbk.).
Chow, Simon, The Sign of JonahReconsidered.A Studyof its Meaningin the Gospel
Traditions. Coniectanea Biblica. New Testament Series; 27-Stockholm,
Almqvist & Wiksell International,1995, 244 p., SEK 182.00, ISBN 91-2201695-3 (paper).
Wolterstorff,Nicholas, Divine discourse. Philosophicalreflections on the claim that
God speaks-Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 326., ? 12.95,
ISBN 0-521-47557-0 (pbk.).
Der Jerusalemer Talmud. Sieben ausgewahlte Kapitel. Ubersetzt, kommentiert
und eingeleitet von Hans-JiirgenBecker-Stuttgart, Philipp Reclam jun., 1995,
352 p., DM 14.00, ISBN 3-15-001733-5 (pbk.).
Speyer, Wolfgang, Religionsgeschichtliche Studien. Collectanea, 15-Hildesheim,
Zurich, New York, Georg Olms Verlag, 1995, 221 p., $ 98.00, ISBN 3-48709993-4 (cloth).
Berkenbrock,Volney J., Die Erfahrungder Orixas. Eine Studie uber die religiose
Erfahrungim Candombl--Bonn, Verlag NorbertM. Borengasser, 1995, XIII
+ 344 p., DM 52.00, ISBN 3-923946-28-7 (cloth).
Krech, Volkhardund HartmannTyrell (Eds), Religionssoziologie um 1900. Religion
in der Gesellschaft, vol. 1-Wiirzburg, Ergon-Verlag,1995, 377 p., ISBN 3928034-57-X (pbk.).
Dalmia, Vasudhaand Heinrich von Stietencron(Eds), RepresentingHinduism. The
Constructionof Religious Traditionsand National Identity-New Delhi, Thousand Oaks; London, Sage Publications, 1995, 467 p., ? 35.00, ISBN 0-80399194-0 (US-HB); ISBN 81-7036-422-1 (India-HB).
Derrett, J. Duncan M., Two Masters. Buddha and Jesus-Northamptonshire, Pilkington Press, 1995, 143 p., ? 17.50, ISBN 1-899044-09-4 (pbk.).
CONTROLLERSAND PROFESSIONALS:
ANALYZINGRELIGIOUSSPECIALISTS1
JORG RUPKE
Summary
Based on a critiqueof JoachimWach's typology of religious authority,the article
attemptsto describe religious specialists as agents of control within their religion's
symbolic universe. Special attentionis given to processes of professionalization.
0. Introduction
Whereas the external perception of religions is very much determined by their functionaries,religious specialists have received only
limited scientific scrutinity.In describingthese specialists, historians
of religion frequentlyuse a typology comprisingterms like "priest,"
"prophet,""shaman,""healer,""magician"-terms that mostly derive
from specific cultural contexts but are used transculturally. Thus,
these types are defined by certain functions and performancesthat
sometimes are embarrassinglymissing from the culture just analyzed. Furthermore,as will be shown in analyzing the typology of
Joachim Wach, a coherent scale or principle in constructingthe different types is missing. The Christianconcept of "mediation"cannot
fulfil this role. A new approachin analyzingand describingreligious
specialists is badly needed.
An attemptis presentedbelow. The point of departureis the rather
general question of religions' interestin an internaldivision of labour.
The controversesabout the priestly characterof early kings demonstrates the difficulties in finding a historical answer to the question.
Instead, a working hypothesis is advanced:For ratherdiffused social
systems such as religions, the stabilizationof its identityby the exertion of control is an importantinstigationfor the division of labour.
This hypothesis cannot be tested directly, but many features of the
NUMEN, Vol. 43
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Jorg Riipke
phenomenology of religious specialists can be shown to conform to

developments predictable on the basis of that hypothesis. In two
short historicalcase studies, ratherunusual systems of religious specializations will appear more understandable. Finally, the specific
momentum of specialization is analyzed by looking closer at processes of professionalizationand their consequences for the religious
systems involved.
1. Religion as individualexperience
In his famous dictum, FriedrichSchleiermacherdefined religion
as the feeling of total dependency ("Gefiihl schlechthinnigerAbhaingigkeit").This individualisticand existentialisticpoint of departure has informed not only liberal protestanttheology but religious
studies as well. Man as individualand his theistic counterpart,divine
message and belief, the call of the transcendentalonto the whole
human being and his reaction-these relationshipsinform research
perspectives in one way or the other. Division of labour,the development of the roles of specialists and theirprofessionalizationappear
to be anachronisticsurvivalsof cultic religions long gone.
This consequence can be detected in the "sociology of religion"
of Joachim Wach (1898-1955). His typology of religious specialists,
formed in a critical analysis of Max Weber's work, bears the title
"types of religious authority"(1944: 331-374). After an overview
of the many forms of religious authorityand the many different(and
unpredictable)reactions towards it (331-337), Wach starts his systematic thinking by reflecting on personal charismaand charismaof
office (Amtscharisma)(337 f.). However,the analysis is not directed
towardsrelationshipsof power-the subjectof Max Weber'sthinking.
For Wach the reactionsof the "audience"(his term for the mass of a
religious group) are not the most importanttopic. According to him,
it is necessary to pay attentionto the religious leaders' own conception of their authority: the "self-consciousness and self-designation
of the 'holy man' " (338). This results in a typology of ten classes
(341-374, cf. Flasche 1978: 219-228):
Controllersand Professionals
243
1) founder of religion
2) reformer
3) prophet
4) seer
5) magician
6) diviner
7) saint
8) priest
9) religiosus
10) audience
The criteriaof this classificationhave alreadybeen named, foremost
personal charisma, the defining element of religious authority. Yet
for religious authority(on Wach's concept of religion) the bearer's
sensus numinis,his "nose"for the divine, his "communion"with it, is
decisive. Externally,the existence and extent of these characteristics
are hardto determine. Thus, the concept of charismatends to become
a matter of the subject's own claims, the typology is bound to the
assertions of religious traditions. Anything else, division of labour,
special tasks or characteristicactivities, are called upon in describing
the single classes, but none of it gives rise to a systematizationthat
comprises more than two classes.
The structuringfunction of the subjectively defined charisma, of
the communion with the divine, is shown by the sequence of the
classes of the typology. Personalcharismais diminishingfrom class
to class. Basically, founder,reformer,and prophetare distinguished
by the external criterion of success. While the seer stands close to
the prophet,he remains,however,ratherpassive in comparisonto the
types above him.
The magician following marks a borderline.On the one hand, his
powerfulpersonalcharismaputs him in one line with the types above
him. On the other hand, sorcery is so institutionalized,professionalized and surroundedby outwardsymbols, that charismadrawnfrom
the office tends to become more importantthan personalcharismacharacteristicof the types below the magician. This is alreadyclear
244
Jorg Riipke
for the diviner, who is part of an institutionalizedsystem and manipulates traditionalsymbols. There follows the priest, entirely characterized by his professionalization(360):
The authorityof the priest depends upon the charismaof his office. The calling
[Wach's association is "job"], not the call [divine calling], characterizesthe
priest ...
Yet, why does the saint come between diviner and priest, a type totally dissociated from any institution? It is his position that, again,
demonstratesthe determingrole of the criterionof personalcharisma.
It is only the diminishing appellativecharacterand authorityof diminishing personalcharismathat defines the sequence. Authority,the
objective side of the subjective quality, is the only reason, why the
priest supersedesthe purely religiosus. The latter'sreligious qualification by an intensifiedrelationshipwith the divine is entirelyprivate,
without any attemptat social authority.
In the end, Weber's dichotomy of charismadrawn from an office
and charismainherentto a person evaporatesdue to Wach's concept
of religion. If all religious activity is determinedby previousreligious
experiences and all personal charismais determinedby the intensity
of these experiences, even the authorityof the priest (conceptually
due to his office) must somehow participatein personal charisma.
Thus, at least for the "authentic"priest, Wach could formulate(360):
Although less original, spontaneous, and intense than that of the founder and
prophet, the priest's personal experience guarantees the qualification for his
mission. The priest "mediates"between God and man.
Even if each class of Wach's typology sounds familiar,they are too

ill defined to provide a structurefor any analysis of individualhistorical situationsor developments. Eventually,Wach was not interested
in different types of religious specialization and their consequences
for an historical religion. His interest was a continuous scale of intensification of the fundamentalreligious experience, or better: of
its weakening and institutionalization-down to the level where ordinary man, the "auditor,"needs a mediatorwho (due to his own more
245
intensive religious experience) could provide the formerat least with

a secondary experience.
Excursus: "Mediator"
The concept of "mediator"demandsa small digression. Mediation
is a centralfeatureof the Christianconcept of priest and is employed
as a basic concept for the (few) monographson priests by historians
of religion. Hence, it is worthwhile to pay a moment's attentionto
the Christiancontroversyon the term.
The point of departurefor the intra-Christian,especially Reformatorian controversyis given by the late New Testamentconcept of a
general and kingly priesthoodof all Christians(1 Petr 2.5, 9). All believers directly participatein the salvatoryevents centered on Christ
as the real and only high priest. However, the concept developed
only a small critical potential against an ecclesiastical hierarchythat
startedto evolve for practicalas well as disciplinaryreasons. More
and more, the "generalpriesthood"was restrictedto the obligation to
lead a really priestly life. Thus, in contrastto the original intention,
a professional ethic, intendedto legitimatethe cleric's authority,was
declared a general norm.
The critical impetus was takenup by MartinLuther. Startingfrom
the justification of the individual,the concept of general priesthood
was integratedinto the fightagainstthe catholic hierarchyand catholic
authoritieson the level of the parishes. The word of God is in no
need of a mediator, it directly addresses every Christian. Again,
however,the critical impetuscould not be transformedinto a positive,
structuringprinciple. The general priesthood was so general and
evenly distributedthat it could not legitimatethe new and-even for
reformatorianchurches-necessary specializations(see Voss 1990).
Basically, for scientific use, the conceptualproblem is identical to
that of Wach's typology. An individual relationshipbetween God
(gods) and man is presupposed. The priest, as "mediator,"enters
the relationship in order to improve or even open the channel of
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Jorg Riipke
communication.Negativelyjudged, he impedes or monopolizestheoriginally direct-line of communication. Everybody should be his

own mediator.
As in the case of Christianity,the historianmight identify such a
conception as a conceptualizationof the religion that he is scrutinizing. Yet the concept is not suitableto form the basis of an analytical
term. As an empirical and historical science, Religionswissenschaft
can analyze its objects, religions, only as systems of social actions
or, paying more attentionto the cognitive dimension, as systems of
symbols. Thus, the suitableparameterin describingreligious specialists cannot be the intensityof the relationshipbetween the "mediator"
and a transcendentaldeity: Even according to Wach, this value can
only be determinedon the basis of the claims of the homo religiosus.
For the historical discipline, the importantvariableis the position of
the specialist within the social system of his religion.2
2. Division of labour and social control
Probably all religions contain religious specialists, usually different religious specialists. This is but a phenomenonof the division of
labour. Its genesis cannot be reconstructed,3but some of its general
functions can be named. The division of labouris a common feature
of growing differentiationwithin the social evolution. Complexity
and adaptiveness of the system grow. Religious actions are not as
controlled by external factors as e.g. economic behaviour. Stability
and hence identity are especially problemsof the culturalsector of a
society. By intensifying the structureof the religious systems, religious specialists come in as controlling agents, if we do not restrict
"control"to the dealing with specific forms of deviantbehaviour(cf.
Janowitz 1973 and Cohen 1968). Control, here, is to be understood
on the model of "social control,"the sum of institutions, processes
and actions serving the maintenanceof the structureand borderlines
of a social system (cf. Gladigow 1987 for the censorship on myths).
Obviously, not all specializations within religious systems involve
control. Buildings or sacrifical animals have to be maintained. At
247
some point in time the latter will be butcheredand cooked. Such

activities give rise to many, even permanent,specializations. Nevertheless, control remains an importantfunction of the large range of
religious specialists often addressedas priests, teachers,theologians.4
As will be seen, many phenomenologicalcharacteristicsof these specialists can be integratedwithin a model that hypothesizesfunctional
and structuraldevelopments of religious specialists within complex
societies-a model that could serve as an instrumentin identifying
and describingprocesses and structuresof religious specialization.
Controlwithin systems of symbols
How can controlbe organizedto stabilizesymbolic universes? One
point to be consideredfirst is literacy: Writingmight preserveverbal
conceptualizationsof symbol systems nearly without limits, thereby
creating the possibility of revitalizationsat any place or time. Any
control must keep up with the flexibility of the media. Censorship,
the banning from libraries,schools, and public reading, and, finally,
physical destructionof texts demandsa thorough-goingbureaucratic
documentation. This illustrates the basic concept of every control,
which-according to Biihler's model of communication-must pay
attentionto the transmitter(producer),to the mediumof transmission,
and to the receiver (addressee).
Yet, for many religions not writing, but the maintenanceof the
symbol system by permanentrepetitionand reactualizationforms the
normal procedure. Ritual is of foremost importance,theological reflection separatedfrom the face-to-face situation of cult is of secondary importance,only. Three basic forms of ritual control can be
named:
1) The monopolization of ritual activities offers a large field of
possible forms of control. Ritualcompetencemight be stressedandin different degrees-restricted to specialists. The right to perform
and hence the possibility to modify could be deniedto non-specialists.
2) A much weakerform of controlwould be the replacementof the
specialists' monopoly by their exemplarybehaviour.The same ritual
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Jorg Riipke
(or type of ritual) that might be performedby e.g. all grown-ups or

all males is performedby the specialists as well, yet-and this is the
importantfeature for authorityand control-much more exactly and
lavishly.
3) Efficient bureaucraticstructureswould be necessary, if the juridical validation (or ratherde-validation)of a ritual is assigned to
specialists. The ritual might be performedby everybody,but its validity is permanentlyprecariousby being subject to the specialists'
potential veto.
Most of the rituals contain verbal elements up to explicit interpretations of the ritual itself. Pure associations, spontaneous interpretations of the participantsnormally remain unsaid, i.e. implicit and
restrictedto the very situation. Thereforeinterestin control is minimal (but cf. Paul 1990). Elaboratedreligious thinkingseparatedfrom
this situation, however, has a large potential for doctrinal development and social effect. The identity of the symbol system might be
seriously affected. Therefore, interest in control of such "theological" productsis large. Measuringrods could be installed in the form
of abstractdogmas. The productionof dogmas as well as the legitimate respecificationof these dogmas for concrete situations will be
monopolized by specialists (who might by identical with the ritual
specialist or not). The definition of a canon of "holy scripture(s)"
is another mechanism. The denunciationor even destructionof the
partisansof the illegitimate theology might follow in a second step,
mostly no longer performedby religious specialists but by political
authorities.The necessaryconditionfor this is the quasi monopolistic
stance of the religious system within the society.
The topic of exclusion leads, afterritualand religious thinking(theology), to the question of membership. Control might be exerted in
the form of an initial filter,i.e. ritualsof initiation. Theirperformance
or-in particular,if the local area is transgressed-their documentation might be monopolized by religious specialists. Such a demand
in documentationcould lead to the building up of archives,even the
monopolizing of systems of documentation(writing systems). In this
249
context, a secondaryreligious socialization,a formal religious education, could be institutionalized.Such an activity could supplementor
supplantthe primaryreligious socialization by participatingin local
cult (cf. Gladigow 1995: 21 f.). Therefore,the organizers,"teachers,"
need not to be identical with the ritual specialists.
Religions thatdemanda comparativelyhigh commitment(and correspondingly offer higher rewards)must protect their resources and
their members' motivationby excluding free-riders(Stark, McCann
1993). An administrationis necessary that could register e.g. payments or individualparticipation.An institutionlike confession, presupposing the interalization of a large range of norms, could complete a supervisionnaturallyfull of gaps, especially for the inaccessible realm of motivationand mental sinning (Hahn 1982).
Control of the controllers
Institutionalized,not only diffused, controls (see Cohen 1966: 39)
are a form of power and need legitimation. This problemis delineated
by the termAmtscharisma("charismaof office"),but not solved. It is
more fruitful to reformulatethe problem in terms of a process. Who
does control the controllers? Obviously, there must be a connection
between the kind and amount of control by the controllers and the
kind and amount of control of the controllers;both could be related
to the religious system as a whole and to society.
Hierarchizationoffers a fairly common solution. Within the controllers, dependencies are defined and behaviouraloptions of the individuals are reduced. Outwards,the apparatusand the system as a
whole are stabilized. You must not judge the system by its lowest
(and mostly the only directly known) representatives.The burdenof
legitimization is (at least partly) taken off from the positions with
continuous contact with the subjects and transferredto the inner, to
the higher positions of the hierarchy.
The functioningof hierarchymight be strengthenedby the motif of
decadence: former priests, shamans,augurs, apostles were mightier,
they were able to performmiracles. This, obviously,is a rathercritical
250
Jorg Rupke
motif. Why, then, would it be handed down so often within the

circle of specialists? It seems to stabilize collegiate and hierarchical
structures,i.e. self-subordination,despite the high authorityclaimed
and representedtowards the subjects. By proliferatingthe motif,
every contemporaryspecialist is remindedthat his power is entirely
dependenton the conferralby the organization.
Coherence of the apparatuscould be promotedby a restrictedadmission. Specialists often practicecooptation. Social stratamight be
reproduced,only a nobleman could be created bishop, only a patrician rex sacrorum. However,the opposite option is feasible, too, and
might accelerate the differentiationfrom the political system. It is
possible to restrict candidates to certain "natural"groups-enlisted
families, gentes-sometimes positions are hereditary. Thus, the restriction (and the ensuing difference in competence and authority)
is "naturally"legitimated. The resulting problem is that supply (or
descendants)and demandcould easily fall out of balance.
The specialists' superiorityin competence is safeguardedby extensive training and the monopolies of certain kinds of knowledge.
It does not matter whether such a knowledge would have any practical usage; what does matter is the solidarity of the knowing and
the prestige assigned by those excluded (see Bremmer 1995, Burkert 1995). Special garmentsand special codes of behaviourenlarge
the distance between specialists and non-specialists and furtherthe
establishmentof the former as a special status group. Such a strategy might culminate in very complex scripts of roles (see Landtman
1905: 86-164).
3. Case studies
The model, which due to its hypothetical character cannot be
proved directly, must demonstrateits usefulness in historical analyses. Here, two rathersketchy examples have to suffice. Both deal
with religious specialists whose traditionalclassification appears to
be unsatisfactory.
251
Shamans
The open-endeddebate on the definition of shamansversus priest
unsatisfactorilytries to draw on a definition of the shaman as individually evoked ecstatic (cf. Quack 1985; Sasaki 1990). This phenomenological approachdoes not conform with the ethnographical
data. In shamanisticsocieties, other criteriaapartfrom the uncheckable claim of the ecstatic exist. For every new shamanthe teaching
received from established shamans is of utter importanceand is a
decisive source of legitimation. Furthermore,in the recognition of a
young man as shaman, the local group is as much involved as the
shaman-to-behimself. It is the local group that decides whether the
"candidate"is to be reveredas a new ecstatic or to be treatedas a lunatic. Naturally,the stance of a "self-madeshaman"is much weaker
than that of an hereditaryshaman. It is importantthat his deviant
behaviour conforms to cultural patternsset by earlier shamans, but
the recognition of that classification has to be made explicit by the
local group (the data are presented by Eliade 1951: 22 f.). Given
the structuresof these societies, the anthropologistnormally would
recognise no shamansbut those approvedby the local group.
Hence, even in the case of ecstatics, controlledtradition,the control of the symbol system, forms a centralelement of the shamanistic
"vocation."Empiricaldata do not supportthe hypothesis that generally ecstatics are a factor of insecurity. Put into context, they tend
to be as conservativeand stabilizing as technicians of hepatoscopy,
interpretersof dreams or exegetics of holy scriptures. Contraryto
Turner(1968: 439), there is no general dichotomy of religious specialists between "institutionalfunctionaries,"manipulatingvisible, ritual symbols (priests), and "inspirationalfunctionaries,"manipulating
psychogenic, "internal,"and putativelyinnovativesymbols.
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JoirgRiipke
Romanpriests
Roman "priests"do not conform to our Christianlyinformedconcept of priest (see Beard, North 1990; Bendlin et al. 1993). These
sacerdotes publici do not have any training, their temporalinvolvement could be characterizedas "leisureactivity,"they do not perform
any pastoralcarework,their way of life does not show any elements
of a special holiness. Even most of the state sacrificesare performed
by magistrates,who are as competentas any paterfamiliasto do such
a ritual. Despite a differentiationinto several colleges (collegia, sodalitates), there are only traces of hierarchy.Permanentorganization
and professionalizationare but initial (Kehrer 1982: 46-50). These
sacerdotes are hardto be understoodas priests,but as controllersthey
do offer a coherent picture.
Control of the symbol system is indicatedby the phrasedisciplina
tenere, keeping disciplinary order on the cognitive level. The colleges decided upon the applicabilityof the political-religiousrules to
specific courses of action. Whenevertemples were dedicated or expiatory rituals for prodigies had to be performed,the sacerdotes had
to offer advice and assistance to the performingmagistrates. Thus,
the most importantinnovative mechanisms in the expansion of the
range of gods and rituals were controlled. A similarly restrained
control was exerted in the realm of sacrifices. The central sacrifices
of the state priesthoodswere exemplary.Protocolswere producedand
sometimes even published in the form of inscriptions;these monumental copies are, at least partly, preservedfor the Arval Brethren
and the secular games. Together with other material, the original
acta formed the archive of a certain priesthood, formed their libri
sacerdotum(see Scheid 1994). Descriptionsratherthan norms were
preservedin writing.
Religious services for individuals (which might be interpretedas
forms of control) were hardlyexistent. The assistanceof some priests
duringmarriagewas restrictedto a special ritualfor upperclass couples. Otherwise, only the religio-legal characterof plots of land
253
(graves, sanctuaries, groves) was an object of priestly control (especially by the pontifices), since private religion and public interest
could interfere. The large political interest in the status and activities of private societies, however, was not vested with the religious
specialist.
Internal control within the religious specialists was poor. Recruiting by cooptation had already been modified by quora (patricians/plebeians) by the end of the 4th century BC, by elements of
public vote by the middle of the 3rd century BC. These modifications were, however, restrictedto very few elevated positions. As a
permanentobject of debatethey remainedprecarious,even if they did
not really enlargethe basis of recruitmentsocially. It was a basic concern of the colleges to assemble as many differentfamilies as possible
within the single unit, for instance by prohibitingthe membershipof
a second male of the same family. Experienceand knowledge was acquiredby life time membership-in itself an importantmechanismof
control (Szemler 1986: 2326). Even this was frequentlyinterrupted
by long periods of foreign military or diplomatic service. Neither
a hereditaryprinciple nor practising as youthful camillus-such an
experience never was a precondition-could preparecandidates for
the task. Apart from the flamines, a special group of single priests
for the service of special deities, priestly garments did not exceed
the status symbols of magistratesand the normalclothes of the upper
strataof society. Hierarchizationwas missing; even the influence of
the pontifex maximus onto other priests was restrictedto the right
to force them to do their specific service in a given case (Gladigow
1970). Lastly, even the epulones, a small college derivatingfrom the
pontiffs' (proto-)equestrianservants(apparitores),were not subjected
to their former masters' authority.
There are two significantexceptions, the alreadymentionedflamines and the virgines Vestales (for the data see Vanggaard 1988,
Cancik-Lindemaier1990). Clothing was strictly regulated, covering the time out of service, too. Nearly permanentpresence was
enforced, strict norms regulatedor even forbade maritalresp. sexual
life. At least in principle, the call into service did not depend on
254
Jorg Riipke
the consent of the (in the case of the Vestals: very) young priests-tobe; they were seized by the pontifex maximus (captio), not coopted
by their colleagues. Theological concepts, perhapscoordinatedwith
these norms, are not explicitly transmitted.Naturally,the interpretation of such a complex of signs is very dynamic. I cannot exclude
the possibility that the idea of the representationof the deity by her
or his priest-the favouriteidea of modem interpretations(cf. Scheid
1986; for India Minkowski 1992; in general James 1955: 291)-was
part of ancient thinking, too. There are, however,no positive indicators that it did dominate ancient interpretations.For contemporaries,
the relationshipwith the other priests, the positional meaning in the
terms of V.W. Turner,must have been much more important. They
were all membersof the same social stratum,they were all regarded
as sacerdotes. Flamen Dialis and Vestals gatheredin the same collegium pontificale as the "leisure time priests"called pontifices (see
Macrobius,Saturnalia 3, 13, 10 f.). Thus, the standing and the representationdone by the few full time priests is part of the prestige
of all priests. Seen from outside, sacerdotes must have seemed to be
much more than they were. Again, the motif of decadence can be
traced: many of the restrictionswere thought to have applied to all
sacerdotes in former times. It is, however, significant for the weak
internalinterest in control that the few attemptsat strengtheningthe
norms of ritual correctness for priests in an exposed position (e.g.
for the flamines and the rex sacrorum during the third and second
centuriesBC) were not successful in the long run (see Riipke 1996a).
The weak control with respect to the populace points to the low
level of organizationof Roman religion. In its traditionalforms, in
Rome religion normally is diffused religion. The large and, with
regard to the upper class, diffused segment of hardly hierarchized
controllersaddressthemselves nearlyexclusively to the area of statal,
political action. The very priesthoodsform an areaof action, wherewithout regardto (the few remaining)differencesin statusand magistraciesjust held-coherence within the political elite can grow, being
structuredby the principle of seniority only.
255
This coherence is not a static, but a dynamic factor. Political or

religious activities are not legitimated by drawing on a dogmatized
tradition. Instead,they have to gain consensus throughan interplayof
a complex system of institutions,checks and balances (Rtipke 1996).
This, exactly, is the interest embodied in the controlling function of
the religious specialists in Rome, who did not safeguardthe products
of a holy tradition. Methodically, it is by means of the analytical
concept of "control,"by the focusing on interdependenciesinstead
of phenomenologicaldata, that such functions of religious specialists
can be detectedand integratedwithin a largerimage of religion within
society.
4. Professionalization
As the Roman example shows, "specialist"is a rathervague term.
There are many degrees of specialization. Neverthelessspecialization
is a useful term. Returningto Rome, it was only the membership
within the colleges that defined the religious function: Political position and social prestige of an upper class Roman citizen did not
suffice to establish the special religious and functional competence.
These members were not simply the patresfamiliasof the state who
automatically had the right (and duty) to perform certain types of
domestic cult.
Specialization-again the Roman example is instructive-does not
equal vocation, is not full time activity. At Rome, only the Vestals
could fulfil this criterion, including their economic dependency on
their "job"(cf. the criteriaof Shils 1968: 245 f.). By any means, full
time vocational roles mark an advancedstate of social evolution.
Professionalization as a specific concept designates a particular
form of vocation, be it full-fledged or only initial (see Ghandi 1982:
9 f.). Professions are defined by
* a formaltraining,finishedby an institutionalizedexam,
thereby
the
a
for
certain
publicly recognized qualification
conferring
culturaltradition;
256
Jorg Rupke
* a certain ability to do things within this cultural traditionincluding a monopoly to do them; and finally professions are
defined by
* an
organizationand by institutionalizedcontrols that ensure
the public usefulness of the vocationalpractice(Parsons 1968:
536).
Professionalization,this is implied, is more than an intensificationof
specialization. Professionalethics are a definingelement, an element,
that might get lost by growing specializationand thus shrinkingsocietal function and responsibility. De-professionalizationis a realistic
possibility (Vollmer,Mills 1966, Schach 1987), perhapseven a tendency within contemporaryChristianpriesthood(Fichterin Vollmer,
Mills 1966: 146; Goldner,Ference, Ritti 1973: 135).
The role of professional ethics cannot be overestimated(Schach
1987, espec. 64). It is an internalizedconception of one's own duties with regardto largersegments of society, controlledby likewise
professionalizedcolleagues and one's own professional organization
only (cf. Zintl 1978: 120). It is professionalethics that allow for the
interpretationof professionalizationas a form of control: "Professionalism is an alternativeform of social control. The professional man
is highly controlled by his professional peers by virtue of common
values acquired in professional schools, by his constant association
through work (and often socially) with other professionals, by his
continuingeducation('keeping up'), which is based largely on books
and journals that only fellow professionals read" (Thompson 1969:
95, cf. 93).
Professional ethics answer the problem that even within densely
structuredorganizationsprofessionals need freedom, since non-specialists are not able to define the precise goals of the hopefully innovative activity of the professional-a criticalproblemfor, e.g. scientific,
innovation-orientedinstitutions.5Controlmust be realizedin the form
of self-control or control by professionalpeers (Schach 1987: 11).
Marketpricing is anothercommon mechanism of control which is
not fully applicableto professionals. If the activity of the professional
257
is fragmentedinto priceableservices at all, anonymoustariffsusually

apply; otherwiseflat rates will be paid or "presents"be given. For the
southernIndiantemple priest, for instance, only a"present"(daksina)
could be a medium of recompensationadequateto his status, a ticket
system avoids the direct monetarizationof smaller services (Fuller
1984: 66, 98-101). Like the change of one's physician, the change
of one's astrologerwould normally not be determinedby his or her
price-a fact to which the economy of religion should pay attention
when it employs the model of the market.
As I have alreadyattemptedto demonstrate,the concept of professionalization is useful for the study of religion, too. In an historical
perspective,the professionalizationof religious specialists is prior to
other processes of professionalizationin medieval and early moder
Europe (Parsons 1968: 537). Paying attentionto the high importance
of professional ethics for the professionalization,it is to be expected
that religious systems will take the lead in processes of professionalization. The decisive factor would be the intensive "ideologization"
of religious organizations. This would produce professional ethics
that do not follow but furtherother aspects of professionalization.I
would even suggest that in comparisonwith other systems, religion
might introduceother forms of specialization,might test the division
of labour, too, rather early. The instigating factors could be religions' high need in controlling and its large possibilities of control
with regardto the controllers. To analyze the timing of processes of
professionalizationwithin different societal, including the religious,
systems might be a fruitful line of research.
Stressing the controlling aspect of professionalizationshould not
obscure the innovativeside, the intensifiedinnovationrate of professionals. Within the religious realm, one could think of the genesis of
Indian corpora of texts as the Atharvaveda(Inden 1992; cf. Kaiser
1992 for Ayurvedamedicin), of the priestly texts and editorial work
in the Tenakh,of the early developmentand differentiationof Roman
law by the pontiffs, or of the establishmentof many of the early Christian Europeanuniversities. These examples are by no means new, but
they illustrate a point that is usually lost in formulatingtypologies
258
Jorg Ripke
of religious specialists. Innovation and control cannot be assigned to

prophets and priests respectively, innovation is not restricted to external stimuli. Professionalization clearly indicates the integration of
potential innovation within the organizational framework. This might
be one of the most interesting aspects of the control approach towards
religious specialists.
Universitat Potsdam
Institut fiir Klassische Philologie
Postfach 601553
D-14415 Potsdam
1 A Germanversion of this
JORGRUPKE
paperhas been given as inaugurallectureat the University of Tubingenon 11thMay, 1995, an outline of the argumentat the annualmeeting
of the Deutsche Vereinigungfir Religionsgeschichteat Bonn. For discussion of the
argument I should like to thank Christoph Auffarth, BurkhardGladigow, Gunter
Kehrer,Hans G. Kippenberg,and Heinrich von Stietencron-and Thomas Lawson
for the improvementof the English text.
2 For a critique of the concept of "mediator"from the part of Indology see the
publications of Heesterman(1971; 1985: 3-9, 141-157; cf. 1991): He reconstructs
a developmentof Vedic ritual, which turns an originally contingentand legitimizing
sacrificial competition between king and priest into a selfcontained, stable ritual
complex: Now, the relationshipbetween political leader (king), who initiates the
sacrifice, and brahmin,the ritual specialist, is only negatively defined by negating
certain interdependencies.Any positive definition (like "mediator")is not suitable.
3 See the detailed account of Landtman1905; cf. Turner 1968: 441-443 for the
differentiationof religious specialists. Both of them stress that the developmentout
of political functions (king, headman)seems to be a particularcase.
4 Named as an importantfunction by Simmel 1923: 235. Cf. Turner1968: 439,
who, however, did not develop his idea: "Whatthe priest is and does keeps cultural
change and individualdeviation within narrowlimits."
5 Cf.
Thompson's list of professional values (1969: 69): "(1) autonomyin work,
both as to means and ends, (2) a belief in professional growth as the measure of
success, (3) an acceptanceof peer evaluation,ratherthan the opinion of a 'superior,'
as the standardof personalworth, (4) an assignmentof the highest value to activities
that develop new knowledge (pure researchover applied research,etc.)."
Controllers and Professionals
259
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1969 Bureaucracyand Innovation. University of AlabamaPress.
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1966 Professionalization.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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PREDECESSORSAND PROTOTYPES:
TOWARDSA CONCEPTUALHISTORYOF THE BUDDHIST
ANTARABHAVA*
BRYAN JARE CUEVAS
Summary
The BuddhistSanskrittermantarabhavarefersquite literallyto existence (bhava)
in an interval (antara) and designates the temporalspace between death and subsequent rebirth. It is apparentthat, among the early schools of Buddhismin India, the
status of this intermediateexistence inspired considerablecontroversy.However, in
spite of its controversialbeginnings, the concept of the antarabhava continued to
flourish and to exert a significant force upon the theories and practices of the later
Northern Buddhist traditions. Questions concerning the conceptual origins of this
notion and its theoretical connections with earlier Indian systems of thought have
received little scholarly attention,despite a growing popularityof literatureon the
subject of death in Buddhist traditions. In this essay the possible links between
the early conceptualsystems of Hinduism(the Vedic and Upanisadictraditions)and
Buddhism are examined to determine whether certain theoretical developments in
Hinduism may have contributedto the emergence of the Buddhistnotion of a postmortem intermediateperiod. The conclusion is drawn that the early Buddhists, in
formulatinga concept of the antarabhava,borrowedand reinterpretedelements from
Hindu cosmographyand mythology surroundingthe issue of postmortemtransition.
Death is perhaps best understood as the interval between dying

and being dead, between a process and a condition.1In this sense
death is an interveningmoment and, in many cases, construedas a
transition,a passage between states ratherthan a mere cessation or
an 'experientialblank'.2As a transitionalevent (the most dramaticof
its kind), death has "all the propertiesof the threshold,the boundary
between two spaces, where the antagonisticprinciples confront one
anotherand the world is reversed".3The thresholdmarks the border
between two territories,between two worlds; the point of passage
from the familiar to the foreign, from inside to outside, or from
outside to inside. To cross the thresholdis, therefore,to enter a new
NUMEN, Vol. 43
264
Bryan Jare Cuevas
space, a new state or condition. It is often said that in passing over

the boundaryone waversfor a length of time between the two spaces,
capturedin a 'limbo', unfixed and vague. This moment of ambiguity
together with its obscure symbolic and spatial dimensions defines
the 'liminal' experience4and best characterizesthe event of death.
Indeed, in many societies death is understood as a transitionfrom
one state to anotherand is often associated with beliefs concerning
the existence of a prolongedpostmortemintermediaryperiod.5Such
notions are certainly found in early Indian Buddhist literature,6and
traces of relatednotions can be uncoveredin the numeroustexts that
make up the vast corpusof BrahmanicandPost-BrahmanicHinduism.
In early Buddhism,the temporalspace between death and the next
birth is given the name 'antardbhava'and is believed to be inhabited
by ethereal beings composed of subtle types of the five aggregates
(skandhas).7These transitionalbeings, called gandharvas, are said
to wander for several weeks in search of their next place of birth.
Often, the term antarabhava is used interchangeablyto refer both
to the postmortem state of transition and to the subtle entity that
exists in such a state. Although the status of the antardbhava, as
Waymanhas demonstrated,inspiredconsiderablecontroversyamong
the early schools of Buddhism in India,8it apparentlydid not even
exist as a concept in the Hinduism of that period (first century CE).
Does this fact suggest that the antarabhavanotion was a uniquely
Buddhist innovation,that such a concept emerged and flourishedin
isolation within the theoreticalconfines of Buddhist cosmology? If
so, how might one explain Buddhism's appropriationof the Hindu
gandharva as its postmortem transitionalentity? I am willing to
accept that the term antardbhavawas perhapsa Sanskriticneologism
coined by the Buddhiststo refer quite literallyto an existence (bhava)
in between (antara), but I am not as willing to concede that the
concept behind the term was not alreadypreparedfor by the earlier
Vedic and Upanisadictraditions.9In this paperI will attemptto locate
and highlight those specific conceptual developments in Hinduism
that may have contributedto the formation of the Buddhist notion
of antardbhava as both a state and an entity, here identified as a
Predecessors and Prototypes
265
gandharva. In the process, my focus will be concentratedaround

Vedic and Upanisadic notions of the manes (pitr), specifically their
spatialpositioningwithin two distinctcosmological schemes and their
symbolic associations with the moon, Soma and (re)birth/fertilityelements that also correspondto variousmythic representationsof the
Hindu gandharva. As a point of departurewe must first consider the
role of sacrifice and its symbolism within the Vedic and Brahmanic
ritual traditionsas detailed in the early textual sources.
Bodies, Vehicles,and Pathways: The VedicSacrificial Model
As a literary corpus, the Vedas are traditionallyunderstood to
be 'collections' (samhitds)of ancient revelatoryknowledge, initially
transmittedorally and later in written form. The oldest collection
of these wisdom verses is the Rg Veda (RV), composed ca. 14001200 BCE and consisting of ten 'books' (man.dalas)-six 'family
books' (books 2-7), containing hymns collected and transmittedby
a different lineage of 'seers' (rsi), and four later books, including
both the collection devoted entirely to Soma (book 9) and the book
of esoteric and philosophical speculation(book 10).10It is this latter
cycle which provides us with specific insight into the Vedic conceptions of death and the potential destinies of the dead. In order to
gain an understandingof the conceptualdynamicsfueling these early
speculations, it is crucial to review the essential components of the
Vedic world view.
The Vedas operate within a sphere of reality organizedinto three
distinct planes: the macrocosmicrealm of divinity (adhidevatd),the
mesocosmic realm of the 'sacrifice' (adhiyajna), and the microcosmic realm of the individual(adhydtman).1lThe interveninglevel, the
'sacrificial' plane, constitutesthe realm of ritualactivity,the fulcrum
of the entire Vedic system. The 'sacrifice' is, therefore,the threshold
event, the pivotal moment,between cosmos and humanbeing; it connects the disconnected,orderschaos, and integratesthe disintegrated.
As a result of its symbolic and spatial positioning, the sacrifice
can be understood from either a macro- or microcosmic point of
266
Bryan Jare Cuevas
view. From the former standpoint,the sacrifice is Purusa,the cosmic

being, who is also known in later Vedic sources as Prajapati. This
primordialgiant (Rg Veda 10.90) is both the victim of sacrifice and
the deity to whom the sacrifice is dedicated. The dismemberment
of the cosmic Purusa/Prajapatieffects the creation of the universe,
which is to say that throughthe primordialsacrifice 'matter'passes
from macrocosm to microcosm, from cosmos to human being; it is,
thus, an anthropogonicevent.12
From the viewpoint of microcosm the sacrifice, as ritualact, is the
human individual. Throughhis 'death' (either real or simulated via
substitution),cosmic unity and order (disruptedas a consequence of
Purusa's sacrificed body) is created and sustained; a movement in
reverse from microcosm to macrocosm-the true cosmogonic act.13
However, because the creationof one always requiresthe disintegration of the other, the sacrifice must be forever re-enacted. In other
words, each sacrifice repeats every other sacrifice; a perpetualcycle
that when projectingforwardalways reflectsback to the firstsacrifice.
The myth of Purusa's dismembermentannounces what was done in
the beginning;the ritualrepeatedby the individualassumes responsibility for reconstitutingthe primordiallyfragmenteduniverse. "With
the sacrifice the gods sacrificedto the sacrifice. These were the first
ritual laws".14
The Vedic understandingof 'natural'death, as Lincoln has so carefully demonstrated,involves the idea of a transmutationof matter
from bodily to cosmic form; the life-breath(asu) 'entering'the wind,
the body 'entering' the earth.15This "materialtranslationfrom microcosm to macrocosm"is viewed as a "last sacrifice that all human
beings perform, in which their very bodies are offered up to ensure
the continuedexistence of the universe".16However,in the cremation
hymn (RV 10.16), Agni is asked not to consume the body entirely,
but ratherto convey the deceased to his paternalancestors(pitr) after
the flames have done their work: "When you cook him perfectly, O
knower of creatures,then give him over to the fathers. When he goes
on the path that leads away the breath of life, then he will be led
by the will of the gods".'7 The implication is that something other
267
than the body is led by Agni to the realm of the fathers (pitrloka).
Is a vague distinction being made here between body and 'soul'?
Perhaps,but as Keith has rightly observed, "it is not altogethereasy
to derive from the Rg Vedaa precise conception of the naturewhich
was attributedto the spiritsof the dead".18Nonetheless, I do feel that
the existence of a 'soul' or 'spirit' is indeed being hinted at in these
verses,19especially in light of a laterpassage which states thatthe deceased will assume a new (ethereal)body presumablyin orderto join
his ancestors: "Let him reach his descendants,dressing himself in a
life-span. O knower of creatures,let him join with a body".20And,
in a earlierhymn, we read: "Unite with the fathers,with Yama,with
the rewardsof your sacrifices and good deeds, in the highest heaven.
Leaving behind all imperfections,go back home again; merge with a
glorious body".21
This notion of a separationfrom the materialbody and the adoption
of a new 'body', with which the deceased 'travels' to the sphere of
the manes, introducesan early variationof a theme present in later
(Buddhist) concepts of postmortemtransitionalexperience-that at
deaththe 'soul', 'spirit', or 'mind' of the deceased (termedgandharva
in some contexts) acquiresa subtle body, and with it moves through
an intermediatespace between his/her former and future condition.
In the context of Vedic presentations,this 'liminal' body is given no
distinct features;yet we can surmisethat it is at least associatedwith,
if not entirely composed of, wind/air.22
The two expressions met with most frequently in the Rg Veda
concerning the deceased's 'spirit' and, by direct connection, his/her
subtle body are dsu (life, breath)and manas (mind). The latterterm,
despite frequentreferences in Vedic sources,23did not achieve conceptual maturityuntil it was furtherdeveloped in the Upanisads. In
light of this, the significance of manas, mind, will not be considered at this point. Here, we are interested,however,in the term dsu.
Keith suggests that the dsu, though not explicitly identifiedwith the
breath, seems to have been based on the notion of the breathas the
clearest and most "visible sign of life and intellect".24The asu is
what separatesfrom the materialbody at death and enters the wind
268
Bryan Jare Cuevas
(the breath's macrocosmic alloform): "May your eye go to the sun,

your life's breath to the wind".25Later, the term atman (breath) is
the more common expressionof the 'spirit/soul',26as in AtharvaVeda
8.2.7: "Go thou to the sun with thine eye, to the wind with thy soul
(dtman)".27Based on the homologous relationshipbetween the breath
and air,28it is not difficult to see how the 'spirit' (asu, atman) of the
deceased, and his/her transitionalbody, might be understoodas being
both composed of and containedwithin the wind itself. It might also
help to recall that in traditionalIndiancosmology the wind is believed
to occupy the mid-space between earth and heaven, the intermediate
atmosphericrealm (antariksa). The scenariocan thus be summarized
in the following manner:due to certainhomologous associations,the
'spirit' and the breath are collapsed into a more or less impalpable
substance, which is then conceived of as some 'entity' that, having
left the material body, assumes an ethereal body and 'travels' the
intermediatespace between earth and the realm of the fathers.
It is true, as Knipe observes, that these early Vedic models do not
offer concrete notions of a full-fledged postmortemintermediatebeing, since the belief is that "a complete new body awaitsthe deceased
in heaven".29Evidence of disembodied'souls' (preta)and transitional
journeys through dangerous liminal realms does not appear significantly until ratherlate in the Vedic period, when such ideas begin to
fully emerge in the ritualtexts (kalpasutras).30However,the language
of some of these early Vedic hymns cannot be so easily ignored. In
these hymns, we find explicit references to such 'threshold'notions
as passage along death's 'highway',31union with bodies that travel,32
or wandering 'spirits'.33PerhapsO'Flahertyis correctwhen she suggests that, in this formativeperiod, the poets were simply trying out
various notions of an afterlife.34At any rate, it is importantto understandthat the Vedas do provide a model, though often vague and
ill-defined, of postmortemtransition,of the deceased's passage from
this world to one beyond; this transit is effected via the mechanics
of sacrifice (cremation),a topic to which we must now return.
At the heart of the Vedic sacrificial system lie the extensive ritual discourses known as the Brahmanas. Composed in the early
269
centuries of the first millennium BCE, these texts interpretand explain the underlyingsignificanceof ritualperformance.They do not,
however, describe what occurs in the ritual. Rather, they provide
commentary on the reasons for, and specific consequences of, the
proper performanceof ritual activity and speech. Central to these
explanations is the doctrine of symbolic and numericalequivalence
(sampad, samkhydna);that is, the sacrifice is understoodin light of
an elaboratesystem of homologies (bandhu)between all the components of the universe. Throughknowledge of these correspondences,
the sacrificer is capable of ritually controlling the cosmos. Such a
principle is mythically substantiatedin the story of Prajapati'svictory over Death, described in the Jaiminiya Brdhmana2.69-70.35 I
bring up this notion of equivalence and control only to point out
the substantialrole attributedin the Brahmanasto ritual sacrifice as
an effective 'instrument'of power for those who know its complex
mechanics. Indeed, with the sacrifice, the ritualistis able to achieve
extraordinaryand dramaticresults, including,for example, the ability
to ascend to heaven.
Frequently, the Brahmanasdeclare that it is the sacrifice itself
which carries the ritualist upward to 'yonder world': "The Agniindeed, "every
hotra,36truly, is the ship (that sails) heavenwards";37
on
sacrifice is a ship bound heavenwards".38
Relying
passages from
the Kausltaki,Aitareya, and PancavimsaBrahmanas,Smith demonstrates that it is more common for the sacrifice to be comparedto a
chariot than it is to a ship:
The introductoryand concludingrites are likened to the two sides of the chariot
and should be symmetrical: "He who makes them equal to one anothersafely
reaches the world of heaven,just as one takes any desiredjourney by driving a
chariotwith two sides." [KB7.7] Similarly,anothertext arguesthatthe Agnihotra
should be performed after sunrise so that it will be like a chariot with both
wheels: "Day and night are the wheels of the year; truly, with them he goes
through the year. If he offers before sunrise, it is as if one were to go with
[a chariot with] one wheel. But if he offers after sunrise, it is as if one were
swiftly to make a journey with [a chariot having] both wheels." [AitB 5.30]
In other texts, other components of the ritual are connected to the parts of the
chariot-the sacrificial fees are the internalfastenings [PB 16.1.13]; the chants
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Bryan Jare Cuevas
are the reins [PB 8.5.16]; and the recitations are said to be the "inner reins."
[AitB 2.37]39
We may recall that, in Vedic cosmology, the sacrifice occupies the

mid-space between the human and divine realms; in fact, this intermediate level, this mesocosm, is identified as the sacrifice itself and
called adhiyajna ('relating to the sacrifice'). As chariot of death,
the sacrifice is what transportsthe sacrificer(the deceased) from the
earthly to the heavenly realm. What is interestingabout this is the
relationshipbetween the sacrifice as intermediary,the chariot as vehicle of travel, and the deceased as passenger; all three are marked
under the sign of transition. In a system supposedly devoid of any
explicit references to a postmortemintermediate'existence', notions
of postmortemtravel should certainlylook out of place. But, perhaps
it is the case that such referencesactually indicate a pre-existingsystem of belief in which death is viewed as a gradualprocess, whereby
the deceased is unable to immediatelysecure his/her place in the afterworld, but must exist, for a period, on the thresholdbetween the
two worlds. This is certainly the view held in the later period of the
ritual sutras, where, for example, we find descriptionsof pindadana
and sapindikaranaas ritual means for insuring the deceased's safe
passage from the dangerous condition of preta to the realm of the
fathers.40It may be of interest, at this point in our discussion, to
examine earlier descriptionsof the deceased's journey to that world
beyond.
A theme central to all Vedic accounts of the postmortemevent,
and, as we shall soon see, one that continues to exert its presence
throughoutUpanisadic literature,is that of the path by which the
deceased travels. Perhapsthe earliest mention of a pathway leading
to the gods (devaloka) occurs in Rg Veda 1.72.7, where Agni, the
deity of the sacrificialfire and hence the intermediarybetween earth
and heaven, is addressedas follows: "Knowingthe ways by which
the gods go, thou (Agni) hast become the unweariedmessenger, the
bearer of oblations".41Later, the path is said to have been made by
Yama, the lord of the dead and the first mortal to have reached the
'other side': "Yamawas the first to find the way for us, this pasture
271
that shall not be taken away. Where our ancient fathers passed beyond, there everyone who is born follows, each on his own path".42
Several verses later, the deceased is addresseddirectly: "Go forth,
go forth on those ancient paths on which our ancient fatherspassed
beyond. There you shall see the two kings, Yama and Varuna,rejoicing in the sacrificial drink.... Run on the right path, past the
two brindled,four-eyeddogs, the sons of Sarama,and then approach
the fathers, who are easy to reach and who rejoice at the same feast
as Yama".43It should not go unnoticed that these verses give some
indication of what the deceased may actually experience along the
way and in the realm of the dead. More elaboratedescriptionsof the
world beyond can be found in Rg Veda9.113.7-11:
Where the inextinguishablelight shines, the world where the sun was placed,
in that immortal, unfading world, O Purifier,place me.... Where Vivasvan's
son is king, where heaven is enclosed, where those young waters are-there
make me immortal.... Where they move as they will, in the triple dome, in the
third heaven, where the worlds are made of light, there make me immortal....
Where there are desires and longings, at the sun's zenith, where the dead are fed
and satisfied, there make me immortal.... Where there are joys and pleasures,
gladness and delight, where the desires of desire are fulfilled, there make me
immortal ....
In the context of the Vedic period, the questionof experienceis an intriguingone. Fully developedaccountsof an individual'sexperiences
in the after-deathstate do not appearuntil at least the period of the
early Upanisads. It is, however,quite interestingto consider the passages above in light of later descriptionsof postmortemencounters.
Take for instance these verses from the Garuda Purdna:
On the thirteenthday, the soul of the dead is taken to the High Way. Now, he
assumes a body born of the pinda and feels hungry by day and night.... In
the path beset with trees, with their leaves as sharpas swords, such torturesare
usual. He suffers from hunger and thirst, torturedby the messengers of Yama.
The departedsoul traversestwo hundredand forty-sevenYojanasin twenty-four
hours. He is bound by the noose of Yama. He weeps as he leaves the house for
the city of Yama.... In his upwardjourney he passes over the best of cities....
On the thirteenthday seized by the servantsof Yama,and all alone, the departed
soul traversesthe path like a monkey led by the juggler. As he goes along the
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Bryan Jare Cuevas
path, he cries aloud repeating: "O my son, O my son, I am undone, alas, I am

undone. I did not act well."44
As seen here in this passage, the transitionfrom this life to the next is
not always a pleasantone. Symbolic forms of manifest anxiety often
assert themselves in threshold situations, when a gap between categorical boundariesopens wide to expose raw and unwieldy realities.
Indeed, thatwhich falls between well-definedboundariesis almost everywhereregardedas dangerous.45In the Vedic texts as well, the path
to heaven is envisioned as being quite perilous. "'Dangerousindeed
are the paths that lie between heaven and earth' [SB 2.3.4.37]; for
on either side of these roadways are eternally burningflames which
'scorch him who deserves to be scorched and allow him to pass who
deserves to pass' [SB 1.9.3.2]."46The idea, expressed throughoutthe
Satapatha Brahmana,47that the dead are punished or rewardedaccording to their (ritual) deeds indicates, perhaps,the presence of an
early form of the notion of moralretribution.However,we should not
be fooled into assertingthat such ideas were prevalentat the time of
the Brahmanas.As Keith presents it, the more characteristicattitude
of the Vedic world view, including the Brahmanas,is "that it is a
good thing to behold the light of the sun, and to live a hundredyears,
for which prayersand spells alike are earnestlyresortedto, and that,
at the end of the life one attains, there will be another,if different
yet analogous, life in the world to come with the same pleasures as
on earth, but without the disadvantagesof human imperfection".48
As early as the Rg Veda, the road travelled by the dead is separated into two distinct paths:49one leading to the gods and another
to the fathers-"Go away, death, by anotherpath that is your own,
different from the road of the gods".50In this early period, however,
the distinctionbetween the two realms is rathervague. It is not until
the early Upanisads that we begin seeing a clear division, in which
the world of the ancestors is said to be associated with the moon,
darkness,sacrificialactivity, and rebirth;the heavenly realm with the
sun, light, knowledge, and immortality.51The pitrloka, as conceived
in the Vedas and Brahmanas,is frequentlyevoked as the prime goal
of the sacrificer (the deceased). Yet, at this stage, both the divine
273
realm (devaloka) and the world of the fathersoften appearsomehow

to co-exist, which is to say that there seems to have been a confusion
regardingtheir exact location. At some point (perhapsprior to, but
certainly by the time of, the first Upanisads),the realm of the fathers
became associatedwith the atmosphericmid-spacebetween earthand
heaven.52The paththatthe deceased previouslyused to reach this obscure realm beyond later developed a fork and branchedoff into two
directions;one roadled directlyto heaven, the othercrossed over into
a murky intermediaterealm. This transitionalspace, we are told, is
reached by those who have 'conqueredthe world' by "sacrificialofthat is, by those who have diligently
ferings, charityand austerity";53
their
lives, the laws of the Vedic sacrificialsysfollowed, throughout
tem. What had happenedwas thatthe ritualmodels of the Brahmanas
had lost their hold and a new paradigmemerged, in which knowledge became the premierinstrumentof power and control.54With this
new model came the concept of 'self, and from this, the notion that
each 'self (person) lives a series of lives (samsdra);that the moral
quality of the person's actions performedpreviously determinesthe
quality of experience in the next life (karma); and that the person
who possesses the correctknowledge can escape the cycle of rebirth
and achieve some ill-defined ultimate state (moksa).
Olivelle has arguedthat this great paradigmshift occurredas a result of significantsocioeconomic changes in sixth centuryIndia, most
notably the growth of urbancenters.55The rise of urbanizationcontributedto the emergence of individualistideologies that "permitted
the creation of the first voluntaryreligious organizationsin India"56
and set the stage for the developmentof religious ideas distinct from
those of the Brahmanicsacrificialhegemony. It was from within this
diversifyingreligioculturalclimate thatBuddhismarose as an alternative traditioncompeting with Brahmanismfor the role of the ultimate
legitimating religious ideology. This detail may help us appreciate
that the "new" traditionsthat emerged during this period, and particularly the religion of the Upanisads and of the early Buddhists,
sharedsimilar sociohistoricalbackgroundsand the common thoughts
and values explicit in those sources. The issue of shared traditions
274
Bryan Jare Cuevas
is significantif we are to betterunderstandthe specific concepts that

the later Buddhisttraditionsdeveloped from these earlier models.
In summarizing,the point that must be stressed here in the context of our specific interestis that, within the Brahmanictraditionup
throughthe sixth centuryBCE, we do find notions of death as a transitional event and of postmortemtravel along a pathway to a world
beyond, a world inhabitedboth by gods and by recentlydeceased relatives. These notions are maintainedinto the period of the Upanisads
where they are reformulatedin light of the new paradigmsthat had
begun to take root. In the next section, we shall consider these same
ideas as they are expressed in the earliest Upanisadic sources, focusing primarily on the shifting cosmological position of the pitrloka
and the symbolism associated with this realm's falling fathers.
Shifting Ideologies, Falling Fathers: The Upanisadic Model
The classic Upanisads representthe culmination of Vedic revelatory wisdom (sruti). As a corpus of speculative theory, they rely
upon the preceding portions of the Veda to which they belong, and
yet maintaintotal independenceand freedom from Brahmanicritual
ideology. Central to the Upanisads is the notion of the nonduality
of self (atman) and absolute (Braman) and the significance of profound insight (gnosis) into the natureof this identity. The emphasis
placed on knowledge in the Upanisads stands in stark contrast to
the Vedic stress on meticulous execution of ritual without gnosis. In
fact, the Upanisads stand against and devalue 'ritual' (a broad label
specifying the central Vedic activity of offering sacrifice), reducing
the whole of Vedic religious activity to an inferior position within
its broadersoteriological scheme while elevating its own gnoseological project.57For our purposes, it is importantto note here that the
Upanisads separatethe 'path of works' (sacrificialactivity) from the
'path of knowledge'. The former,it is believed, results in a lengthy
life on earth and, at death, leads to a heavenly world beyond in the
company of gods and fathers. Inasmuch as it requires sacrificeunderstood in the Upanisads as being a principal cause of human
275
bondage and suffering-the ritual path representsan obstacle to liberation (moksa). The path of knowledge, on the other hand, leads to
the highest goal, unity with Brahmanand deliverancefrom the ongoing cycle of earthlyexistence (samsdra). When consideredin light of
the Upanisadicnotion of death and rebirth,we find that the two paths
correspondto the ascent and descent of the soul, respectively. Given
that the fate of the soul is conditioned and determinedby either the
deceased's knowledge (vidya) or conduct (karma)in his/her previous
existence, those who do good become good and those who do evil become evil.58The individualwho has sacrificedand performedworks
of public service (i.e., the good Brahminritualist)attainsthe heavenly
realm of the manes (pitrloka) and then returnsto this world, while
the one who knows the nondual nature of self and Brahmanattains
the realm of the gods (devaloka)and deliverancefrom repeatedbirth.
With this split between pitrloka and devaloka/liberation,the former
relegatedto a position below the latter,we arriveat the core of what
I would now like to explore in more detail; namely, the significance
of the Upanisadic displacement of the ancestors (exemplars of the
Vedic world) and their symbolic relationshipto the moon, darkness,
and rebirth. To begin, let us consider one of the earliest, and most
famous, formulationsof the doctrine of the transmigrationof souls
from the ChdndogyaUpanisad:
Those who know this, and those who worship in the forest, concentratingon
faith and asceticism, they are born into the flame, and from the flame into the
day, and from the day into the fortnight of the waxing moon, and from the
fortnightof the waxing moon into the six months during which the sun moves
north; from these months, into the year; from the year into the sun; from the
sun into the moon; from the moon into lightning. There a Person who is not
human leads them to the ultimatereality. This is the path that the gods go on.
But those who worship in the village, concentratingon sacrifices and good
works and charity,they are born into the smoke, and from the smoke into the
night, and from the night into the other fortnight[the dark half of the month],
and from the other fortnight into the six months when the sun moves south.
They do not reach the year. From these months they go to the world of the
fathers, and from the world of the fathersto space, and from space to the moon.
That is king Soma. That is the food of the gods. The gods eat that.
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Bryan Jare Cuevas
When they have dwelt there for as long as there is a remnant(of their merit),
then they returnalong that very same roadthatthey came along, back into space;
but from space they go to wind, and when one has become wind he becomes
smoke, and when he has become smoke he becomes mist; when he has become
mist, he becomes a cloud, and when he has become a cloud, he rains. These
are then born here as rice, barley, plants, trees, sesame plants, and beans. It
is difficult to move forth out of this condition; for only if someone eats him
as food and then emits him as semen, he becomes that creature'ssemen and is
born.59
In considering this passage, I want to narrowthe focus and concentrate primarilyon the descriptivecomponents of the path that leads
to the realm of the fathers (pitrydna). Those verses concerning the
path of the gods (devayana) have been quoted simply in order that
the latter materialmight be viewed within its propercontext. Let us
start by extractingthe elements that will drive the remainderof this
discussion.
Containedwithin the Chandogya'sdescriptionof the pitryana, we
encounterseveral significantsigns, each correspondingto one another
and possessing an intuitive cogency. In order of occurrence, they
are sacrifice, smoke, night, fathers, space, moon, Soma, wind, mist,
cloud, rain, vegetation, and semen. If we then arrangethese components according to their associative content into five categories, we
have the following: Vedic ritual (sacrifice, smoke), darkness (night,
moon, and by connection,Soma), atmosphere(space, wind), moisture
(mist, cloud, rain), and fertility/growth(fathers, semen, vegetation).
As discussed briefly above, a connection is drawn in the Upanisads
between Vedic sacrificial activity and the path of the paternal ancestors. Indeed, despite the emergence of radically new conceptual
paradigms,the belief that the performanceof ritual sacrifice leads to
the world of the fathersis never abandonedin these early Upanisadic
sources. 'Sacrifice', therefore, can be understood as an alloform,
so to speak, of both Vedism and the manes. In the context of the
physical dynamics of the sacrifice, we can extend the association to
include fire and smoke. Transformedby fire (agni),60the sacrificial
oblation-soma in life, the body at death-passes into the 'smoke',
277
and from the smoke into the 'night'. From these associations,we are
lead into our second category, 'darkness'.
We have already noted in some detail that, in Vedic cosmology,
the chief place of the dead is the heavenly abode, a realm inhabited
by gods and fathers. At death, the 'soul' exits the body and, by the
fathers' path, arrivesin a divine world pervadedby the lustre of the
gods. Heaven, the transcendentgoal of the Brahmanicritualist, is
always associated with light and the sun's brilliance.61However, in
the laterUpanisadicconceptions,the move towarda radicalseparation
of the realm of the gods from that of the fathers, seen here in the
above quote from the Chdndogya,redefinesthe symbolism of the two
worlds and introducesinto its doctrineof the transmigrationof souls
the centraldichotomy of light and darkness. The devaloka,inasmuch
as it representsthe purity of Brahman,the absolute, continues to be
associated with radiantlight; the realm of the pitaras, falling to an
inferior position, becomes the intermediaryworld of darkness. The
pitrloka, at once the pure goal of those seeking immortality,has now
become the "way station in the recycling of souls".62
In keeping with this theme of darkness, we see that the soul, en
route to the world of the paternalancestors, travels by way of the
moon. The moon, an ever-presentmotif in Indian mythology, is
often a symbol both of death and regeneration;its periodic waxing,
waning, and disappearancecan very easily be understoodin light of
"the universal law of becoming, of birth, death and rebirth".63And,
as Eliade has observed, "the moon is the first of the dead. For three
nights the sky is dark;but as the moon is rebornon the fourthnight,
so shall the dead achieve a new sort of existence".64These 'dead'
who are destined to achieve a new life on earth are none other than
the souls of those who, having diligently performed sacrifice and
good works in the previous life, but have not gained the 'light' of
knowledge, travelthe darkenedpathof the fathers;a pathconceived in
the Upanisadsas being the lunarjourney of the soul duringthe "dark
half of the month"when the celestial body is periodically 'dying'.65
The moon is thus the door to the paternalrealm of the dead and,
because it is forever renewed, it gives second birth "back to those
Bryan Jare Cuevas
278
who come to it and addressit properly"by nourishingthem with its

divine nectar (soma).66
In considerationof its nourishingcapacity,we should take note of

the moon's connections to moisture (rain), vegetation, and fertility.
Gonda suggests that these connections
supposed by many peoples to exist between the moon, rain (candramaso vai
vrstir jayate "raincomes from the moon" AiB. 8, 28, 15) and plant life were
deduced from their being subject to recurringcycles which were held to be
governedby the movementsof the celestial body which in 'primitive'and archaic
thought stands for perpetualrenewal,from the influence on the growth of living
beings attributedto it, and from the conviction that the moon has control of all
water and moisture.67
We have alreadyseen that the soul, following the path of the fathers,
travels to the moon, and from the moon falls back down upon the
earth as rain to be (re)born again in plant form. But how to interpret the moon's fertilizing power? The answer lies in the associated
symbolism of the moon's vitalizing substance,Soma.
This Soma, which in the Vedas denotes not only the fluid draught
of immortalitybut also the juice of a plant offered in libations to the
deities of the sacrifice, comes explicitly, in the post-Vedic period, to
be a name of the moon.68It is true, nevertheless,that Soma's connection to the moon had alreadybeen forseen in the early Brahmanas.In
this context, Soma was consideredto be of heavenly origin and identified as a lunardeity.69As a substance,it became seen as the moon's
nectar (amrta), and by extension the vital juice (rasa) of life, both
animal and vegetable.70Soma's identificationwith the 'sap of life' is
linked to that aspect of the moon's symbolism whereby the celestial
body is seen as having control over all water and life-bearingmoisture. "Being of heavenly descent", the moon's rasa (Soma) "makes
its presence felt in all plants, animals and human beings".71But,
Soma is not only the essential life-bearing moisture of the heavens,
it is also "the generativeforce of all male beings", or rather,semen
(TaittirlyaSamhita7.4.18.2).72In this connection, we discover an associative link between the moon and fertility; the final link in our
279
chain of discussion concerning the Upanisadic network of symbols

surroundingthe soul's journey to the realm of the fathers.
To summarizethus far: In the early Vedic period, a lengthy and
blissful existence in the radiantdivine realm of the fathers (deva-/
pitrloka) was the ultimate goal of the Brahmin sacrificial ritualist.
When, as a result of various ideological shifts, the nondualistgnoseological project of the Upanisadsemerged in the sixth centuryBCE,
the ritual mechanics of the Brahmanic world was relegated to an
inferior position within the largerUpanisadicsoteriological scheme,
organizedaroundthe centralconcepts of rebirthand final deliverance.
Following the movementof this paradigmshift, the cosmological position of the pitrloka (representingthe entire Brahmanicuniverse)
fell and the pitaras became, in some sense, the intermediariesbetween heaven (Brahmaloka,formerly the devaloka) and earth. In
the process, the soul's journey to the world of the fathers became
associated with darknessand was described in terms of the moon's
course during its periodic 'death'. Once connected to the moon, this
journey of the soul was seen to culminate in rebirthon earth, first
in the form of moisture (rain), then in the form of plants and trees,
and then, having been consumed by animals, in the form of male semen to be finally (re)borna humanbeing, but only to startthe cycle
all over again. Having established connections between the moon,
which governs the waters and sponsors the growth of living beings,
the Soma that is these watersas well as the essential powerbehindthe
cyclical processes of fertility, and the dead, particularlythose souls
travelingthe shadowy path of the fathersand fated to return,we can
now widen our focus and explore how these connections may have
influencedthe early Buddhistnotion of the state of postmortemtransition (antardbhava)and the beings that are said to be its subjects,
the gandharvas.
Spirits in the Space Between: The VedicGandharva
In the Vedasand Brahmanas,gandharvasare said to be semi-divine
beings who dwell in the atmosphericmid-space (antariksa)between
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Bryan Jare Cuevas
earthand heaven.73They are affiliatedwith Soma whose home, as we

have noted, is in the heavens;he "guardshis home"74;"he rises high
to the heaven's fault, beholding all his (Soma's) variedforms".75The
gandharvas are renownedfor protectingthis divine drink, which, together with Parjanya,the rain-god,and the daughterof the Sun, they
stole from the gods.76The Brahmanicsources recounthow Soma remained with the gandharvas, and how the gandharvaVivasvant(the
Vedic father of Yama and Yami) had stolen the vital juice. At that
point the gods and rsis desiredthe Soma for themselves, and knowing
that the gandharvas covet women,77they bought the sap from them
for the price of a divine woman, the goddess Vac (speech).78No
doubt, as a consequence of their associations with Soma, the gandharvas are also describedas "knowingplants".79Recall that Soma is,
among other things, the essential vital fluid present in all forms of
life, both vegetable and animal.
In a similar vein, the gandharvasare occassionally associatedwith
the waters. The gandharva as 'divine youth' and the nymph of
the waters are alluded to as the parents of Yama and Yami (RV
10.10.4). MacDonnell notes that, in the Rg Veda (9.86.36), Soma
poured into water is called "the gandharva of the waters",and also
in the Atharva Veda (2.2.3 and 4.37.12), the gandharvas, together
with the apsarases, are said to dwell in the waters.80Perhaps,to respond to Oldenberg, the gandharva may indeed be linked (in part
due to his connection with the fertilizing Soma) to both the celestial
water of the clouds and the waters of the earth.81In fact, Sayana,
glossing Rg Veda8.77.5 in which Indrais said to have cut down the
gandharva from the celestial region so as to protect the Brahmanas,
takes the word 'gandharva'to mean 'cloud' (gamudakamdharathatiti
gandharvo meghah).82From these connections, we can suggest that
the gandharva's affiliationwith Soma as life-bearingmoistureshould
also include the divine sap's secondary identity as generative fluid,
related intimately to sexuality and fertility.
As attractivesemi-divine youths, the gandharvas are the natural
lovers of the graceful and aquatic apsarases.83In this amorous capacity, the gandharva is affiliated with the wedding ceremony, and
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the unmarriedbride is said to be possessed by him as well as by

Soma and Agni.84Consequently,the gandharva (Visvavasu), during
the first few days of marriage,is regardedas the irritatingrival of
the jealous husband: "Go away from here! For this woman has a
husband.... Go away from here, Visvavasu, we implore you as we
bow. Look for another girl, willing and ready. Leave the wife to
unite with her husband".85Lovers and seducers of women, the gandharvas are often describedas enjoying an active sex life.86It is in this
context, I suppose, that the SdnkhdyanaGrhyasutra(1.19.2) identifies the female genitals as the mouth of the gandharva Visvavasu.
Moreover, always given over to pleasure, they are fond of scents
(gandha)87and scented objects and are describedas wearing fragrant
(surabhi) garments;hence the name gandharva, "eatersof scent".88
As sexually virile beings, the gandharvas, together with their female companions,the apsarases, are believed to preside over fertility
and are petitioned by those desiring progeny.89Following the trajectory of this theme, the Buddhists, in a later period, name that being
gandharva (Pali, gandhabba) who, upon departingfrom its previous
existence, enters the womb and becomes an embryo at the moment
of conception; its passage recognized as an autonomoustransitional
period (antarabhava)between the end of one life and the beginning
of the next.
IntermediateStates, TransitionalBeings: The BuddhistAntardbhava
The concept of an autonomous postmortem intermediateperiod
between lives can be found in both the Hinayanaand Mahayanasutras
and their commentaries.90Unfortunately,it has been the case that
researchin Buddhiststudiesdevotedto these textualsourceshas failed
to creatively engage the issue, and thus has contributedvery little to
our understandingaboutthe historicaltransformationsof this uniquely
Buddhist concept.91To begin to unravelthe theoreticalcomplexities
involved in the Indian (and Tibetan) Buddhist texts that deal with
postmortem transition, it is necessary first to begin to examine the
historical movement of ideas-steps that, in my opinion, have been
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Bryan Jare Cuevas
taken much too tentatively.Thatbeing said, let us returnto the matter

at hand.
Early on, some schools of Buddhism in India recognized four
stages in the life cycle of a sentient being: birth,the period between
birth and death, death, and the period between death and the next
birth (antarabhava). During the interveningperiod between death
and rebirth, as we have previously noted, a being is said to 'exist'
as a spirit called gandharva, composed of subtle aspects of the five
aggregates (skandhas). Waymannotes that the theory of such ethereal spirits and of the status of their transitionalautonomy inspired
considerable controversyamong the early Buddhist sects.92He lists
a number of Buddhist schools that either accepted or rejected the
notion. Among those that assertedthe existence of the antarabhava,
were the Sarvastivadins,Vatsiputriyas,Sammatiyas,and Pirvasailas.
The schools that disputed the idea included the Theravadins,Vibhajyavadins, Mahasanghikas,and Mahisasakas.93The details surrounding both the acceptance and the rejection of such a theory are intricately woven throughouta complex fabric of rigorous philosophical
argumentand speculation. As a consequence, we cannot delve too
deeply into the debate, or otherwise we risk veering far off course.
We can, however,providea workingoutline of the basic assumptions,
privileging the ideas of those schools that did accept the notion of
antarabhava.
According to the Assalayanasuttaof the Majjhima-nikaya(a Pali
Theravadasource), it is said that the conjunctionof three factors is
necessary for conception to take place: there must be sexual intercourse between the parents,the mother must be in the properphase
of her menstrualcycle (her 'season'), and a gandhabba (Skt., gandharva) must be present.94In his commentaryon this passage, the preeminentfourthcenturyscholarof the Theravadaschool, Buddhaghosa
interpretedgandhabba as the entity that is just about to enter the
womb (tatrupakasatta),that is preparedto exist (paccupatthitohoti),
and that is propelledby its kamma(Skt., karma).95As a proponentof
Theravadatenets, Buddhaghosadid not accept that his interpretation
implied the existence of an intermediatestate (antarabhava). On this
283
topic, he was simply stating a point consistent with the philosophical

position of his school; a point briefly arguedin the Kathd-vatthuof
the Abhidhamma-pitaka(8.2).96
In opposition to this Theravadininterpretation,the Sarvastivada
sect, among others, supportedthe notion that the transitionalperiod
did indeed exist. In his Abhidharmakosa(a masterfulfourthcentury
exposition of the Sarvastivadaposition), Vasubandhuarguedthe case
in some detail. As he defined it, the intermediatebeing and its state
of existence are to be located between the moment of death and the
moment of (re)birth.97Quoting a passage similarto the one we noted
above, Vasubandhuwrites:
We read in the Sutra,"Threeconditionsare necessaryfor an embryoto descend:
the woman must be in good health and fertile, the pair must be united, and
a Gandharvamust be ready." What is the Gandharvaif not an intermediate
being?98
This gandharva is said to be composed of the five aggregateswhich

proceed to the place of rebirth,99and to possess the configuration
of what is to be the form of the future being after conception.10?
Moreover,he is "seen by the creaturesof his class ... by the divine
eye. His organs are complete. No one can resist him. He cannot
be turned away".10'Concerningthe name 'gandharva', Vasubandhu
explains
[The intermediatebeing] eats odors. Fromwhence it gets its name of Gandharva,
"he who eats (arvati) odors (gandham)."The meaningsof the roots are multiple:
arv, if one takes it in the sense of "to go," justifies "he who goes to eat odors"
(arvati gacchati bhoktum).We have gandharva,and not gandharva,as we have
sakandhu, or karkandhu. A Gandharvaof low rank eats unpleasantodors; a
Gandharvaof high rank eats pleasantodors.102
In addition to the answer Vasubandhuoffers, it is certainly possible

that the gandharvabecame identifiedin some Buddhisttraditionsas
the being of the intermediatestatenot only because of its etymological
associations, but also more importantlybecause of its cosmographic
connection in the Vedas to the atmosphericmid-space between earth
and heaven, its relationshipto Soma, and its affiliations with fertility and conception. The gandharva is thus the means, or access
284
Bryan Jare Cuevas
(sagamana), throughwhich a being, emerging from its previous life,

reaches its new properexistential course (gati).103Moreover,in considering other possible symbolic associations, we should not ignore
the intriguingpassage from the BrhaddranyakaUpanisad (4.4.4) in
which the gandharva's body is likened to the 'body' achieved after
death: "And as a goldsmith, taking a piece of gold turns it into another, newer and more beautiful shape, even so does this self, after
having thrownaway this body and dispelled its ignorance,make unto
himself another,newer and more beautiful shape like that of the fathers or of the gandharvas...". We should be cautious, however, in
drawingfirmconclusions from statementsthat appear,or are implied,
only once in the text, as is the case with this particularpassage. In
almost every instance, gandharvas (if even mentionedat all) are not
identified in the early Upanisadsas transitionalbeings.
To help strengthenhis argumentfor the existence of intermediate
state beings, Vasubandhuintroducesstatementsby the Buddha concerning the five types of non-returners(anadgmin)-those individuals
who, having died in this world, are reborn in a heaven where they
will achieve liberation:104
The Blessed One teaches that there are five types of Anagamins: one who
obtains Nirvanain an intermediateexistence (antaraparinirvdyin),one who obtains Nirvana as soon as he is reborn(upapadyaparinirvayin),one who obtains
one who obtains Nirvana
Nirvana without effort (anabhisamskaraparinirvdyin),
and one who obtains Nirvana
by means of effort (anabhisamskdraparinirvayin),
by going higher (ardvasrotas).105
In commenting on the first type of non-returner(that individualwho

achieves enlightenmentin the intermediatestate), Vasubandhuoffers
the following summaryof the teachings found in the Satpurusagatissutra:
This Sutrateaches thatone should distinguishthreetypes of antardparinirvdyins
on the basis of their differences of durationand place: the first is similar to a
spark that is extinguished as soon as it arises; the second to a fragment of
reddenedmetal which enlarges in its flight; the third to a fragmentof reddened
metal which enlarges in its flights, but later, and without falling back into the
Or rather, the first antardparinirvdyinobtains Nirvana as soon as
sun....
285
he has taken possession of a certain divine existence; the second after having
experienced a heavenly bliss; and the third, after having entered into company
or conversationwith the gods.... We say that, for the masterswho admit these
Sutras, the existence of an intermediatebeing or the "skandhasin the interval"
is proved both by Scriptureand reasoning.106
For our purposes, the crucial point in all of this is that, for those
Buddhists who accepted the theory of an intermediatestate, a being
emerging from its previous existence could either returnby way of
reconception in the form of a gandharva or escape rebirthby never
returning,and thus achieve nirvana. Nevertheless, in both instances
the being would have to pass throughan intervening(antara) moment
of existence (bhava) between either of the two futureconditions. We
should now consider how the formerentity, the gandharva,is said to
enter the womb and develop as an embryo upon conception.
Having fully substantiatedhis claim for the existence of the intermediate state, Vasubandhuproceedsto explain how rebirth(pratisamdhi) takes place:
An intermediatebeing is producedwith a view to going to the place of its realm
of rebirthwhere it should go. It possesses, by virtue of its actions, the divine
eye. Even though distant he sees the place of his rebirth. There he sees his
fatherand motherunited. His mind is troubledby the effects of sex and hostility.
When the intermediatebeing is male, it is grippedby a male desire with regard
to the mother; when it is female, it is gripped by a female desire with regard
to the father; and, inversely, it hates either the father, or the mother, whom it
regardsas either a male or a female rival. As it is said in the Prajnapti,"Then
either a mind of lust, or a mind of hatredis producedin the Gandharva."
When the mind is thus troubledby these two erroneousthoughts,it attaches
itself throughthe desire for sex to the place where the organsarejoined together,
imagining that it is he with whom they unite. Then the impuritiesof semen and
blood are found in the womb; the intermediatebeing, enjoying its pleasures,
installs itself there. Then the skandhasharden;the intermediatebeing perishes;
and birth arises that is called "reincarnation"(pratisamdhi).107
Even without making obvious comparisonsto Freud's Oedipus, this

passage is of particularinterest to us if we consider it in light of
the Vedic notion of the gandharva. We should rememberthat in the
Vedas the gandharva is famous for his beauty and seductive power.
286
Bryan Jare Cuevas
His passionate love for women often put him in compromisingpositions, especially when seen by others as an annoying rival of the
young bride's new husband. It would appearthen that, in the minds
of the early Buddhists, the gandharva's amorous and sordid nature
became the source of an uncontrollablelust that preventedhim from
achieving loftier goals. Clearly, we see reason to identify the gandharva with that being who, obscuredby passion, is on the recycling
path far from Buddhistenlightenment.
By the sixth centuryCE, Buddhistdescriptionsof the intermediate
state had solidified, following a standardizedmodel first established
by the earlier schools.108Furthertransformationsand amendmentsto
this model would not occur until Tantrismbegan its vast sweep across
NorthernIndia in the seventh and eighth century. The BuddhistSiddha cults of this period reinterpreted,elaborated,and embellishedthe
antarabhavatheory in the context of their specific metaphysicaland
soteriological projects. These systems were then introducedto Tibet,
where theories of transitionalstates (bar do) achieved unprecedented
rank among the essential teachings of Buddhism.109It is important
to realize that, despite its controversialbeginnings, the concept of
the antarabhavacontinuedto flourishand to exert a significantforce
upon the theories and practices of the later (Northern)Buddhist traditions. We should now summarizethe majorpoints discussed above
in order to clear a path for our closing argument.
The early Buddhist sects were divided over whether or not an intermediatestate between lives should be recognized. Those schools
that rejected the notion did, however, accept the name 'gandharva'
(Pali, gandhabba) for that which enters the womb upon conception.
It was argued that this 'gandharva' was simply a term for the particularconsciousness that linked one existence to another(patisandhi
vifnana) and was not a discarate spirit of any kind.10 On the other
hand, those schools that accepted the antarabhavatheory advanced
the notion that the gandharvawas in fact an actualdisembodiedtransitional being wanderingin search of its next place of birth. A being
in the intervening state had two possible paths before it: (1) as a
gandharva driven by the karma of its previous existence, the being
287
could be rebornin this world, in which case it would have to eventually enter the womb of its future mother, but only if conditions
were right (i.e., if the parentswere engaged in sexual intercourse,the
mother was in her 'season', and the gandharvawas present);or, (2)
if particularlyadvancedalong the Buddhistpath, the being could opt
out of existence, so to speak, and, in the period of transition,achieve
final liberation (parinirvdna)from the ongoing cycles of birth and
death (samsdra). Here we simply encounter a version of the basic
Buddhist teaching of moral retribution-those who follow the righteous path set forth by the Buddha achieve the highest goal, while
those who blindly follow the whims of passion and desire are swept
up by the fierce winds of karma and driven back down into another
existence, only to begin the cycle all over again.
Synthesis and Conclusion
I would like now to adopt a comparativeapproachand examine
the three models presentedabove in terms of theirrelationshipto one
another. It is my contention that these apparentlydistinct models
actually form partof a conceptualcontinuum,but are not necessarily
linked by direct causal development. Let me illustratemy point. The
Vedic model can be representedby two poles that,when arrangedspatially, are aligned along a vertical axis. The upper pole corresponds
to the heavenly realm of the fathers (devaloka/pitrloka)-recall that
in this period the two realms are not clearly distinguished;the lower
pole correspondsto the earthlyrealm. Placed in the intervalbetween
the two is the sacrifice,the fulcrumof the entireVedic system and the
link that connects earth to the heavenly world above (fig. 1). More
specifically, in terms of the system's mechanics, an individual, via
the sacrificial act, passes from the microcosmic plane (adhydtman)
to the macrocosmicrealm of divinity (adhidevatd),here identifiedas
either devaloka or pitrloka. At death, this transitionfrom microcosm
to macrocosm is a materialone and is understoodquite literally as a
final sacrifice to be performedby every humanbeing.
As a result of various ideological shifts that had taken place in
India aroundthe sixth century BCE, the Vedic model was redefined
288
Bryan Jare Cuevas

Devaloka/Pitrloka
sacrifice
death
Earth
birth
Figure 1. The Vedic model.
Liberation
IntermediateRealm
(moon/soma, moisture,fertility)
rtransitional
f/^
~x~i
being
rebirh
death
Earth
birth
Figure 2. The general post-Vedicmodel.
and hence spatially rearranged(fig. 2). In the Upanisadic model,

we still have a basic vertical polarity, only now the pitrloka has
been separatedfrom the devaloka and situatedin the space between
heaven and earth (fig. 3). This shifting of the father's realm to an
intermediarylevel occurredin partbecause of the ancestor'sintimate
relationship to the Vedic sacrifice (it should not go unnoticed that
in the Vedic model this ritual activity occupies the interveningspace
between earth and heaven). In the Upanisads, the ritual system of
the Brahmanashad lost its preeminentposition, displaced by a new
paradigm in which knowledge assumed supremacy. With this new
paradigm came the notion that each person lives a series of lives
(samsara); that the moral quality of the person's previous actions
289
Devaloka (Moksa)
Pitrloka
!/^~ a ^^
pitr
rebirth
death
Earth
birth
Figure 3. The Upanisadic model.
(karma)determinesthe quality of existence in the next life; and, that

the person who possesses the correctknowledge of the nondualityof
self and Absolute (Brahman)can foreverescape (moksa)the ongoing
cycles of birth and death. In the Upanisadicmodel, final deliverance
is identified as devaloka (or Brahmaloka) and corresponds to the
upper pole on the vertical axis. At death, the soul's journey follows
one of two distinct paths: one leading to the 'gods' (and liberation),
another to the fathers (and rebirth). The latter path is followed by
those who have 'conqueredthe world' througha lifetime of sacrificial
offerings and public service. In other words, the realm of the fathers
is reached via ritual activity and good works, and without supreme
gnosis. For the Upanisads,knowledge is what liberatesthe soul and
'sends' it to the world above. The heavenly realm is associated with
the sun and its radiantlight (knowledgeand immortality),the paternal
realm with the moon and darkness(ignoranceand death).
The moon itself being periodically 'dead' becomes the prototype
of the deceased's passage and returnto life. The life cycle of the
soul, subject to alternateperiods of birth and death, is regardedin
the Upanisads as being governed by the cycle of the moon; and
because this cycle demonstratesthat there is life in death, the dead
are said to go to the moon to be regeneratedand transformed,all in
preparationfor a returnto a new life on earth. It was believed thatthe
journey back followed the descent of the divine life-bearingessence,
or Soma, the vitalizing moisture that manifests itself in the cyclical
Bryan Jare Cuevas
290
processes of fertility. This Soma was associated in Vedic mythology

with its protector,the semi-divine gandharva. Occupying the midspace between heaven and earth,the atmosphericrealm (antariksa)of
clouds, moisture and rain, the gandharvatook over the attributesof
the divine Soma and became affiliatedwith the powers of fecundity
and reproduction. The Buddhists, appropriatingthe concept of this
intermediarybeing, maintainedthat the gandharva was that entity
who, upon emerging from its previous existence, eventually enters
the womb and becomes an embryo at the moment of conception.
The Buddhist model can also be representedas a vertical polarity
with an intermediatezone. Although structurallyconsistent with the
Upanisadic model, it replaces that system's concept of moksa (devaloka) with its own nirvdna and the pitrloka with its antardbhava
(fig. 4). Emergingfrom within the same conceptualenvironmentthat
gave rise to the soteriological project of the Upanisads, Buddhism
also presented its own version of the doctrines of samsara, karma
and liberationfrom the cycles of birthand death. Similarly,the Buddhists argued that, at death, a being could travel one of two paths.
If, in his/her previous life, the individualhad performedgood works,
diligently practicedthe Buddha'steachings,and had gained as a result
the proper wisdom, s/he would travel the straightpath upward and,
from within the interveningstate, achieve the final goal, emancipation
(nirvana)from the ongoing cycles of existence. If, on the otherhand,
Nirvdna
Antarabhava
gandharva
death
(rebirth
Earth
birth
Figure 4. The Buddhist model.
291
the individual had failed in the prior life to perform many virtuous
deeds and had not gained the wisdom of the Buddha'steachings, s/he
would be caught in the recycling process and as a gandharva-the
intermediatestate being-descend into a womb to be born again.
In the final analysis we see that, structurallyspeaking,the Buddhist
and Upanisadic models, proceeding from the vertical polarity of the
earlierVedic model, correspondto one anotherand togetherexhibit a
more generalized patternlike that diagrammedin figure 2. In terms
of the conceptual history of the idea of a postmortemtransitional
period, we can argue that the Buddhist antardbhava is conceptually linked to the Upanisadicpitrloka and that notions surrounding
the latter may have, in some sense, provided the cosmographicand
symbolic components for the developmentof the intermediatestate
concept in Buddhism. The argumentis made clearer if we consider
the correspondencesbetween the two systems. In the Upanisads,the
paternalrealm is spatiallypositionedbetween earthand 'heaven', the
state of final liberation(moksa) as well as between death and rebirth.
The fathers and the path to their abode are associated with ritual activity, the moon, Soma, life-bearing moisture, and rebirth. Like the
pitrloka, the Buddhistantardbhavais also placed between earth and
the liberated state (nirvdna) as well as between death and rebirth.
The inhabitantsof this intermediaterealm are called gandharvassemi-divine liminal beings closely associatedwith Soma, life-bearing
moisture and fertility. As disembodiedtransitionalbeings, gandharvas travelthe interveningspace and, upon conception,enter a womb;
the first moment of a new existence.11
The conclusion that I would like to draw out from the argument
above is thatthe Buddhists,in formulatingtheirnotion of the intermediate state, may have borrowedelements from Vedic and Upanisadic
theories of postmortem transition. Sharing similar ideological assumptions, the symbol systems operatingin both Buddhism and the
early Upanisads allowed for a certain amount of cross-fertilization.
From the Buddhist side, it appears that the antardbhavatheory is
either partiallyor entirely the result of the fusion of Upanisadiccosmography (pitrloka) and Vedic mythology (gandharva), transposed
292
Bryan Jare Cuevas
on a grid that is structurally,but not conceptually,identical to that of

its Upanisadic rival.
Department of Religious Studies
BRYANJ. CUEVAS
Cocke Hall, University of Virginia

Charlottesville,Virginia22903, USA
* I would like to thank Professor David G. White of the
University of Virginia,
for his wise and patientguidance.
1 John MartinFischer, The Metaphysicsof Death (California:StanfordUniversity
Press, 1993), 4.
2 Ibid., 4.
3 Pierre Bourdieu, The
Logic of Practice (California: StanfordUniversity Press,
1990), 228.
4 See Victor Turner,The Forest
of Symbols: Aspects of NdembuRitual (Ithaca,
New York: Cornell University Press, 1967) and The Ritual Process: Structureand
Anti-Structure(Ithaca,New York: Cornell UniversityPress, 1969).
5 For
examples, see MauriceBloch andJonathanParry,Death & the Regeneration
of Life (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982); Richard Huntingtonand
Peter Metcalf, Celebrationsof Death (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1979
& 1991); James L. Watsonand Evelyn S. Rawski, Death Ritual in Late Imperialand
ModernChina (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1988); RobertHertz,Death
& the Right Hand (New York: Free Press, 1960); Stan Royal Mumford,Himalayan
Dialogue (Wisconsin: Universityof Wisconsin Press, 1989); and, Glenn H. Mullin,
Death and Dying: The TibetanTradition(Boston: ArkanaPaperbacks,1986).
6 See, for instance, Mahavyutpatti1015, 7680; Lankavatara-sutra160.5, 177.4,
370.14; Dharmasamgraha 103; Mahavastu 1.33.6; Vasubandhu'sAbhidharmakosa
390.19 and Yogacdrdbhami1.20.4-13. Of the
3.10-15; Asanga's Bodhisattvabhuimi
early schools of Indian Buddhism, the Theravadinscontested the notion of a postmortem intermediateperiod (antarabhava). I will consider in more detail the issue
of Buddhist postmortemstates in the latter part of this paper.
7 These are: form
(rupa), sensation (vedana), perception (samjia), mental formations (samskdra),and consciousness (vijiiana).
8 For details see Alex Wayman,"The Intermediate-StateDispute in Buddhism".
In Buddhist Studies in Honour of LB. Horer, L. Cousins, ed. (Holland: D. Reidel
Publishing Company, 1974), 227-239.
9 At this point, I have been unable to locate the use of the term antardbhava
in any Vedic or Post-Vedic textual source. The term, however, does appear in
Amarasimha'sAmarakosa (3.4.135), dating sometime between the sixth and eight
293
centuries CE. This find is not tremendouslysignificantsince Amarasimhawas supposedly a Buddhist, but it is interesting to note that he identifies the antardbhava
entity as a gandharva (antardbhavasattvegandharvo divyagdyane//bardo bar srid
sems can dang rta dang Iha yi glu gandharva). See Amarakosaand Its Tibetan
Translation('Chi Med mDzod), M.M. Satis ChandraVidyabhusana,ed. Gangtok,
1984, 833.
10 This information has been gathered from David M. Knipe, Hinduism and
Stephanie Jamison, The Ravenous Hyenas and the WoundedSun (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1991), 11.
1' Brian K. Smith, Reflectionson Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion (New York,
1989), 46.
12Bruce Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos,and Society: Indo-EuropeanThemesof Creation
and Destruction (Cambridge,Massachusetts:HarvardUniversityPress, 1986), 139.
13 Brian K. Smith,
Reflectionson Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion, 50.
14 RV 10.90.16; unless otherwise
noted, all translationsfrom the Rg Veda are
York:
O'Flaherty's (New
Penguin Books, 1981).
15 Bruce Lincoln,
Myth, Cosmos, and Society, 127.
16
Ibid., 127.
17 RV 10.16.2. For an
intriguinganalysis of cremation/sacrificeas primarilyan
act of cooking that both feeds the god Agni and preservesthat part of the deceased
which is to be conveyed to the world beyond see Charles Malamoud, "Cuire le
monde". In Cuire le monde: rite et pensee dans l'inde ancienne (Paris: Editions de
la D6couverte, 1989).
18 ArthurBerriedale Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedasand Upanisads (Cambridge,Mass., 1925; reprintDelhi, 1970), 403.
19 See also RV 10.58.
20 RV 10.16.5.
21 RV 10.14.8
(emphasis added).
22
to
a
lesser degree, this 'subtle' body is also composed of light. A rather
Perhaps
reference
to light and the intermediatebody is found in Rg Veda 10.56.1:
peculiar
"This is your one light, and there beyond is your other; merge with the third light.
By merging with a body, grow lovely, dear to the gods in the highest birthplace".
O'Flahertyinterpretsthe light 'beyond' as a referenceto the sun, the 'one light' to
the funeralpyre, and the 'thirdlight' to the realm of the dead (O'Flaherty,Rig Veda,
94). I must admit, the result of O'Flaherty'seducated effort to make sense of this
intriguingpassage is quite plausible,even thoughshe offers no documentedevidence
for her position. However,I would preferthat the 'thirdlight' representthe sun or a
similar source of intense radiance,ratherthanthe 'light beyond', which could just as
easily be thoughtof as the realm of the dead. The reasonfor this switch is dependent
upon my reading of several passages from the SatapathaBrdhmana,where the sun
294
Bryan Jare Cuevas
is understood as death. It is here also that reference is made to a 'glowing light',

a 'lotus-leaf', and an 'immortalelement', all of which are homologous and related
intimately with death. The key is containedin the following verse: "... after laying
down the lotus-leaf, it is on thatimmortalelementthathe buildsfor himself a body ...
and he becomes immortal"(SB 10.4.5.2; Julius Eggeling's translation).Concerning
this 'immortalelement', we find: "And that man in yonder (sun's) orb is no other
than Death; and that glowing light is that immortalelement..." (9B 10.5.2.3). And,
"thatglowing light is the same as this lotus-leaf..." (SB 10.5.2.6).
Now, amid the confusion, I would like to constructa coherentpictureof what all
this might mean. The 'one light' is indeed the fire of cremation. The 'light beyond'
is the realm of death-"yonder (sun's) orb is no other than Death". At some level,
O'Flaherty may be correct in identifying this light with the sun, but clearly the
essential point is that the 'yonder orb' is linked to death itself. The 'thirdlight', or
rather 'the glowing light', is the 'immortalelement' out of which arises the subtle
body; hence, to "mergewith the third light" is just anotherway of saying "merging
with a body". And, having "puttethon the radiant"(SB 10.5.2.4), the deceasedjoins
"the gods in the highest birthplace".
23 See for example RV 10.58 and AV 6.18.
24 ArthurB. Keith, The
Religion and Philosophy of the Vedasand Upanisads,
403.
25 RV 10.16.3.
26 The dtman,
together with the breaths (prdnas), becomes in the Upanisads a
considerable
of
importance, and one that succeeds in generating potentially
topic
endless speculation.
27 Unless otherwise noted, all translationsfrom Atharva Veda(AV) are William
Dwight Whitney's (Cambridge,Mass., 1905; reprintDelhi, 1962).
28 For a detailed discussion of this relationshipconsult Bruce Lincoln, Myth,
Cosmos, and Society, specifically pp. 119-140.
29 David M. Knipe, "Sapindikarana:The Hindu Rite of Entry into Heaven",in
Religious Encounters with Death, ed. FrankReynolds and Earle Waugh (Pennsylvania State University, 1977), 114.
30 See for example, SankhdyanaGrhyasutra(3.5, 6; 4.2.7), PairaskaraGrhyasuitra
(3.10.49), BaudhdyanaGrhyasitra (3.12.14), and BhdradvdjaGrhyasatra(3.17). In
this later literature,a clear distinctionis made between the recently deceased, called
preta, and the distantly deceased, the fathers (pitaras). Elaboratefuneraryrituals
(srdddha) are prescribedfor the purposesof enabling the preta to join the company
of its ancestors. It is believed that failureto performthe rites may result in the preta
becoming angry. In thinking of pretas as vengeful spirits, we may be remindedof
the so-called 'hungry ghost' (also referredto as preta) in Buddhist literature. The
relationshipbetween Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of preta is a fascinating and
complex issue that has received little scholarly attention-the details remain to be
295
sorted and examined. I have not included a discussion on this topic because the
Buddhistnotion of preta rests firmly within a specific cosmological framework(e.g.,
the six realms of existence) distinct from notions of antardbhava.Unlike the Hindu
preta of the ritual sutras, its Buddhist counterpartis rarely, if ever, identified as a
postmortem transitionalentity; hence, the issue is not particularlyrelevant at this
stage in our examinationof intermediate-statetheories.
Nonetheless, for comparativeanalyses of Hindu and Buddhist notions of preta
within the broadercontext of merittransfer,see JohnC. Holt, "Assistingthe Dead By
Veneratingthe Living: Merit Transferin the Early BuddhistTradition,"Numen 28,
no. 1 (1981): 1-28; and David G. White, "Dakkhinaand Agnicayana: An Extended
Application of Paul Mus's Typology,"History of Religions (1986): 188-213.
31 RV 1.72.7; 10.14.1; 10.14.2; 10.14.7; 10.14.10; 10.164.30-31; 10.88.15.
32 RV 10.56.1; 10.56.5; 10.56.7.
33 RV 10.164.30; 10.58.
34 O'Flaherty,The Rig Veda,48.
35 J.C. Heesterman, The Inner
Conflict of Tradition (Chicago: University of
Heesterman
discusses this myth in the context of a
32-33.
Press,
1985),
Chicago
much broaderargument;namely, that, with the eliminationof Death as a participant
in the ritual, the rival was likewise eliminated and thus "the single yajamanawas
enabled to deal ritually with death without incurringthe risk involved in the ambivalent cooperation with the others" (32). This moment markedthe beginning of
Heesterman'sso-called "classical period"in Vedic India.
36 The daily morning and evening fire sacrifice.
7 SB 2.3.3.15.
38 SB 4.2.5.10 (emphasis added).
39 Brian K. Smith, Reflections on Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion, 106. For
a discussion of the correlationbetween sunlight and the fires of the agnihotra ritual, consult H.W. Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering(Agnihotra)
according to the Brahmanas(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976).
40 For actualdetails concerningthese rites, consult David Knipe, "Sapindikarana:
The Hindu Rite of Entry into Heaven";PandurangVamanKane, History of Dharmasastra: Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law (Poona, 1968-1975),
vol. IV, 220-240 & 520-525; Veena Das, "The Uses of Liminality: Society and
Cosmos in Hinduism", Contributionsto Indian Sociology 10, no. 2 (1976): 245263; and Meena Kaushik, "The Symbolic Representationof Death", Contributions
to Indian Sociology 10, no. 2 (1976): 265-292.
41 Translationby S. Radhakrishnan,The Principal Upanisads (London, 1953;
reprintAtlantic Highlands,NJ: HumanitiesPress, 1992), 432.
42 RV 10.14.2.
43 RV 10.14.7, 10; also AV 8.2.11.
296
Bryan Jare Cuevas
44 GarudaPurana (pretakdnda)2.15.72, 76, 78-82, 84-85. Translationin Ancient

Indian Tradition & Mythology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979), vol. 13, 812813. See also Emil Abegg, Der Pretakalpa des Garuda Purdna (Naunidhirdma's
Sdroddhdra):Eine Darstellung des hinduistischenTotenkultesund Jenseitsglaubens
(Berlin and Leipzig: Walterde Gruyter& Co., 1921), 44-58.
45 Issues related to death,
impurity,and danger are, by now, quite overworked
cliches. Nonetheless, the classic studies on the topic are still Hertz's "A Contribution
to the Study of the Collective Representationof Death"in Death and the RightHand,
trans. R. & C. Needham(New York: Free Press, 1960), 27-86; MaryDouglas, Purity
and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966; reprint,
New York: Ark Paperbacks,1989); and, more recently,MauriceBloch and Jonathan
Parry,ed. Death and the Regenerationof Life (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity
Press, 1982).
46 Brian K. Smith, Reflections on Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion, 108.
47 See for example SB 11.2.7.33.
48 ArthurB. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedasand Upanisads,
410.
49 Lincoln has shown that the image of a bifurcatedpath on which the dead travel
has its roots in a common mythic motif found throughoutvarious Indo-European
'funerarygeographies', rangingfrom the earliest hymns of the Rg Vedato nineteenth
century Russian folklore. See his Death, War,and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology
and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 119-127.
50 RV 10.18.1.
51 See
BrhadaranyakaUpanisad (BAU) 6.2.15-16; ChandogyaUpanisad (ChU)

4.15.5, 5.10.1-2.
52 Brian K. Smith,
Reflections on Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion, 115n.185.
53 BAU 6.2.16.
54 See for example BAU 1.5.16.
55 Patrick Olivelle. Samnyasa Upanisads: Hindu Scriptureson Asceticism and
Renunciation(Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1992), 19-57.
56 Ibid., 33.
57 See for
example BAU 4.4.22; ChU 1.12 and 5.24.4; and TaittiriyaUpanisad
(TaitU) 2.3.
58 BAU 4.4.5.
59 ChU 5.10.1-6 (bracketsadded), translationby Wendy Doniger O'Flahertyin

TextualSourcesfor the Study of Hinduism (Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble
Books, 1988), 36-37. For alternativepassages,compareBAU 6.2.15-16; ChU 4.15.56; and Kausitaki-BrahmanaUpanisad (KBU) 1.2.
60 RV 1.72.7; 2.2.4; 10.16.2.
61 RV 1.109.7; 1.125.6; 10.56.1; 10.58.6; 10.107.2; 10.154.5; 27.21; AV 3.29.3;
4.34.2-6; 6.120.3; 11.4; SB 11.5.6.4; 14.7.1.32-33.
297
62 Brian K.
Smith, Reflections on Resemblance,Ritual, and Religion, 115n.185.
63 Jan
Amrtaand the Moon" in
and
Gonda, "Soma,
Change
Continuityin Indian
Religion (London: Mouton & Co., 1965), 40.
64 Mircea
Eliade, Patterns in ComparativeReligion (New York: New American
171.
1958),
Library,
65 For information
concerninglunarsymbolism and the prognosticand diagnostic
of
the
moon's
periodic cycle in Indian medicine, consult Francis Zimsignificance
mermann's"Rtu-Sdtmya:The Seasonal Cycle and the Principleof Appropriateness",
Social Science & Medicine 14B (1980): 99-106.
66 Gonda, "Soma, Amrta and the Moon", 44. Gonda's statement comes as a
response to a passage he had earlier quoted from the Jaiminlya Upanisad (JU)
3.27.17.
67
Ibid., 42.
68 Ibid., 38.
69 See SB 1.6.4.5; 7.3.1.46; 11.2.5.3.
70 SB 6.2.2.6. Reference from David White, The Alchemical
Body (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, forthcoming),21n.35.
71 Gonda, "Soma, Amrta and the Moon", 46.
72 Ibid., 48.
73 RV 1.22.14; 8.66.5; 10.39.5.
74 RV 9.83.4; translationby Ralph T.H. Griffith in Hinduism: The Rig Veda
(1889; reprint,New York: Quality PaperbackBook Club, 1992).
75 RV 9.85.12; translationby Griffith.
76 RV 9.113.3.
77 RV 10.85.21-22; SB 3.2.4.3;
Maitrayani Samhita (MS) 3.7.3; Pancavimsa
Brdhmana(PB) 19.3.2.
78 AitareyaBrdhmana(AB) 1.1.27; SB 3.2.4; TaittiriyaSamhita (TaitS) 6.1.6.5;
MS 3.7.3.
79 AV 4.4.1.
80 A.A. MacDonell, The VedicMythology (Varanasi: Indological Book House,

n.d), 137.
81 Hermann Oldenberg, The Religion of the Veda, trans. ShridharB. Shrotri
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,1988), 125.
82 Referenced and quoted in R.S. Panchamukhi,Gandharvas & Kinnaras in
Indian Iconography(Dharwar:KannadaResearch Institute, 1951), 3.
83 AV 2.2.5; PB 12.11.10.
84 RV 10.85.40-41.
85 RV 10.85.21-22; translation
by O'Flaherty.
86 AV 4.34.2-3.
87 AV 12.1.23.
88 RV 10.123.7.
298
Bryan Jare Cuevas
89 PB 19.3.2.
90
Principalexegetical sources for the Hinayanamay be found in Vasubandhu's

Abhidharmakosa(Kosa) 3.10-16; 3.40; 4.53; 6.34, 39, and like sources for the
Mahayana are Asanga's Abhidharmasamuccayaand the Bhimivastu section of his
Yogacaryabhumi1.20.4-13.
91 I know of only one article in English devoted entirely to this issue, and that is
Alex Wayman's "The Intermediate-StateDispute in Buddhism"in BuddhistStudies
in Honour of .B. Homer, ed. L. Cousins (Holland: D. Reidel PublishingCompany,
1974), 227-239. The topic is discussed by Sh6ku Bando in his "Antarabhava",
Indogaku BukkyogakuKenkyt (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies) 27, no. 2
(1979): 182-183, but unfortunatelythis work has not been translated.Dieter Michael
Back's philological analysis of the so-called TibetanBook of the Dead is perhaps
the first study that genuinely attemptsto move beyond the psychological, devotional,
and/orsectarianbiases of the vast majorityof scholarsworkingin this particulararea.
See his Eine buddhistischeJenseitsreise: Das sogenannte "Totenbuchder Tibeter"
aus philologischer Sicht (Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz,1979).
92 Alex Wayman,"The Intermediate-StateDispute in Buddhism",227.
93 Wayman, 227. These schools developed approximatelya century after the
Buddha's death as a result of certain schisms that had taken place in the Buddhist
Order. The initial split occurredduring the famed Second Council (c. 383 BCE),
which was held over the issue of whether or not certain practices adopted by the
monks of Vaisali were in violation of the monastic precepts (vinaya). The verdict
resulted in the formation of two schools: the Mahasanghikaand the Sthaviravada.
Many more schools eventuallysplit away from these originaltwo. The Sarvastivada,
the Vatsiputriya, the Sammatiya, the Theravada, and the Vibhajyavadawere all
descendantsof the Sthaviravadalineage. It is not known from where the Purvasaila
sect arose. For an elaborate account of the historical development of the early
Buddhist sects, consult HirakawaAkira, A History of Indian Buddhism,trans. Paul
Groner (University of Hawaii Press, 1990), 77-126.
94 Majjhima-Nikaya2.157, also see 1.265-266.
95 PapaicasuidaniMajjhimanakdyatthakatha
2.310; reference taken from James
P. McDermott, "Karmaand Rebirth in Early Buddhism"in Karma and Rebirth in
Classical Indian Traditions,ed. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (Berkeley: University
of CaliforniaPress, 1980), 170.
96 For a translation,see Shwe Zan Aung and Rhys Davids, Points of Controversy
or Subjectsof Discourse (London: Luzac & Company,Ltd.; Pali Text Society, 1969),
212-213. The argumentcenters arounddivergentinterpretationsof the Sutraphrase
"completed existence within the interval". The disputed point revolves aroundthe
notion that there exists an intermediateperiod of a week or longer during which a
being awaits a new conception. The counter-argumentbases itself on the Buddha's
statementthat there are no more than three states of existence-desire (kdma),form
299
(ripa), and the formless (ariupa).Since the interveningstate is not included in any
of these three, the conclusion must be that such a state does not exist.
97 Kosa 3.10.
98 Kosa 3.12; unless otherwise noted all translationsfrom Vasubandhu'stext are
by Leo M. Pruden from Louis de La Vallee Poussin's French translationof the
Abhidharmakosabhadyam
(Berkeley,California:Asian HumanitiesPress, 1988).
99 Kosa 3.10.
100Kosa 3.13.
101 Kosa 3.14.
102 Kosa 3.14.
103 Kosa 3.4.
04 Samyuktdgama-sutra37.20; Digha-nikdya3.237.
105 Kosa 3.12.
106 Kosa 3.12.
107 Kosa 3.15.
108
CompareVasubandhu'saccount,for example, to thatfound in the Saddharmasmrty-upasthdna-sutra34.
109In Tibet, such notions became an essential componentin a highly developed
and extensive soteriological system involving the radical manipulationof psychophysical energies to bring about transformativenonordinarystates of consciousness
(in many instances, said to be identical with the experiences of dying). See for
example Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins,Death, IntermediateState and Rebirth
(New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1979); Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear Light of
Bliss: Mahamudrain VajrayanaBuddhism(London: Wisdom Publications, 1982);
and Giacomella Orofino, Sacred TibetanTeachingson Death and Liberation(Great
Britain: Prism Press, 1990).
110McDermott,"Karmaand Rebirthin
Early Buddhism",170.
l The
correspondinglinks can be strungtogetherin the following manner:
pitzloka = intermediaryrealm
the moon = death
pitaras = the moon = Soma
Soma = moisture= fertility = gandharva
gandharva = antariksa = disembodiedspirit= antardbhava
antardbhava= intermediaryrealm
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Review article
NATIVEEGYPTIANRELIGIONIN ITS ROMAN GUISE
DAVIDFRANKFURTER
Fetes d'Egypte ptolemaique et romaine

FRANCOISEPERPILLOU-THOMAS,
d'apres la documentationpapyrologiquegrecque. StudiaHellenistica31.

Louvain: Studia Hellenistica, 1993. Pp. xxxi + 293. BEF 1600.
Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, Teil II: Principat, Band
18: Religion, 5. Teilband: Heidentum: die religiosen Verhaltnissein
den Provinzen. Ed. WolfgangHaase. Berlin: De Gruyter,1995. Pp. xiv
+ 929. DM 726,00. ISBN 3-11-014238-4.
At least since the release of the Nag HammadilibraryRoman Egypt has
seemed like the land of Christianitiespar excellence, a veritable cauldron
of sects and study-groupssurpassing(or perhapsexemplifying) other areas
of the late antique Mediterraneanworld. New work on nascent monasticism, desert ascetics, and all their various literatureshas also come to
reveal a vastly more complex Christianitythan was once portrayedin histories of this region. But one would hardly know from all this data and
attention that Christianitywas of only idiosyncratic and sporadic appeal
into the fourth century. Church historians are hard-pressedto admit that
Egyptians-ordinary Egyptians-already had "a"religion that was entirely
life- and community-sustainingbefore the late-fourth-centuryonslaughtsof
monks razed temples and interruptedmillennia-oldtraditionsin the villages.
The two books under review provide perhaps the most complete documentation yet of native Egyptian religion in its Roman guise, the Aufstieg
volume (according to its customaryformat) drawing topically on different
kinds of data, Perpillou-Thomasfocusing exclusively on the religious implications of festivals.
NUMEN,Vol.43
304
David Frankfurter
I.
Following the streamof anthropologyspawned by Victor Turnerthe festival has received much attention in recent decades within historical and
religious studies, representingas it does the quintessentialreligious moment
in the life of communities. For Egyptologists the festival's significance lies
principally in its effective linking of temple and town, that rare point at
which the sacred images exited the temples, borne on priests' shoulders,to
bless, demarcatespace, or render oracles. So Apuleius, for example, rendered the festival of the navigium Isis as it took place in imperial Rome
(Metamorphoses11). And in Roman times, so the papyri seem to suggest,
these traditionalprocessions were only the high points of elaborate carnivals to which acrobats,poets, dramatists,athletes,and pilgrims would come.
The elaboratenessof these panigyres broughta sense of civic victory to a
town and its burghersand even a context for celebratingcommunalreligious
solidarity that might outlast the economic decline of temple cults.
In many ways festivals constitutedlocal religiosity. As Perpillou-Thomas
points out, Egyptiansconstructedtheirlocal sense of time aroundthe festival
calendar-used them to date events and to schedule rendezvous. Festivals
also represented a communally-recognizeddisruption of quotidian life, a
"sacredtime" of sorts, requiringnot only special materialsfrom one's grain
or wine store but displacementof distant family members, special clothes,
gift-exchange, and the influx of itinerantperformersor celebrants.
It is in this context thatPerpillou-Thomas'sstudybecomes one of the most
importanthandbooks of late Egyptian religion yet published, a systematic
assessment of what Egyptians outside the temples were celebrating in the
Greco-Romanperiod, what was involved in popularcelebration,and which
gods occupied their attention. Written as a dissertation under the nowdeceased doyenne of the Nile cult, Danielle Bonneau, and itself published
posthumously, the book is beautifully produced in the Studia Hellenistica
series and reveals a scholar who could move easily between Egyptology and
Hellenistic studies.
Some festivals deserve particularmention here for what they say about
the evolution of an ancient culture under the impact of Hellenism.
One is not surprisedto find an abundanceof festivals of Isis (Isia) attested from the third century BCE throughthe end of the third CE. But in
the Roman period, Bonneau herself had revealed, it was the celebrationof
the birth of Isis, the Amesysia, that achieved particularprominence as an
Native EgyptianReligion in its Roman Guise
305
agriculturalfestival throughoutEgypt. Perpillou-Thomasnow assembles a

largercorpus of witnesses with a discussion of the festival's implicationsfor
the evolving Egyptian calendar.
Calendarplacementas well as details in the papyrimake clear that some
festivals of Demeter in Greco-RomanEgypt were not syncretistic versions
of the Isis cult but rather evidence of Greek communities dedicated to
their own imported traditions. This fact does not gainsay the abundant
evidence for Demeter-Isis (-Thermouthis)syntheses throughoutEgypt; and
indeed, Perpillou-Thomasnotes thatan EgyptianIsiac traditionof festal giftexchange seems to have been adoptedby the Demetria. But these festivals
do make clear that Greek gods could be maintainedin some insulationfrom
Egyptian religion.
A strikingcontrastto the preservationof a GreekDemeteris the Egyptianization of the Roman Dioscuri. Perpillou-Thomasadvances an observation
firstproposedby the EgyptologistJan Quaegebeuron the Egyptiancharacter
of the rites dedicated to the Dioscuri. The rites themselves are attested in
papyri of the second and third centuries,from the Fayyum, and echo other
witnesses to Dioscuri cults in the Fayyum. Quaegebeurnoticed the strong
resemblance of these Fayyum Dioscuri to the great Fayyum crocodile god
Sobek (Souchos), among whose various local avatarswas a dyad-"twins".
Perpillou-Thomas'sresume of Quaegebeurhere underthe aegis of festivals
goes far in dismantlingolder assumptionsabout which Greco-Romancults
could and could not be assimilatedto Egyptianreligion.
The Sobek-Dioscuri connection shows the creativityand resourcefulness
of the variousSobek priesthoodsin maintainingthe god's (or, more correctly,
gods') statusin the Romanperiod. Of course, Fayyumculturewas a singular
amalgam of immigrantand indigenized Greeks and Egyptians;and papyrus
archiveslike those of Tebtunis,Karanis,SoknopaiouNesos, and Narmouthis
reveal well-organized priesthoods often responsible for cult shrines over
large areas, who were not only proficient in Greek but also dedicated to
what may loosely be called the Hellenistic idiom-Greek in its broadest
sense-to express the nature and power of Sobek. Festivals to Sobek are
attestedthroughthe collapse of Fayyumcultureat the end of the thirdcentury
CE and even for some time thereafterunderanothername for the crocodile
god, Kronos.
Perpillou-Thomas'scompilation also brings out the importanceof what
are often held to be minor gods. A festival in second-century(CE) Dendara
306
David Frankfurter
for the god Bes, widely popular for his powers of maternaland neonatal
protection, shows that Egyptians' devotion to him did not stop at the domestic threshold(as might be implied by his absence from Plutarchand yet
enormousrepresentationin "household"terracottas)but ratherextended into
the sphere of public ritual. Of course, Bes was quite popularin Dendara,appearing all over the Roman "birth-temple"in the Dendaratemple precinct;
and the Roman period sees the rise to internationalprominence of a Bes
oracle at Abydos. The existence of a Besia thus fills out our knowledge of
public and domestic piety and their relationshipduring this period.
The same Dendara "festival papyrus"(first discussed at length by H.C.
Youtie, Scriptiunculae 1, pp. 514-545) reveals a festival to the god (Seth-)
Typhon. Originallythe recipientof devotions as a god of desert, storm, and
foreigners, Seth's cults had apparentlydeclined in the Persian and GrecoRomanperiodsas conquestsand culturalcomplexityled to his demonization.
It is only this festival, plus some new temples being excavatedin the Dakhleh
oasis, that suggest a continued cult of Seth. But what could it have meant
to "worship"Seth in the second centuryCE? The oasis temples suggest his
protective function; Dendara is near Ombos, where Seth had been a local
protectorcenturiesearlier. But Perpillou-Thomasneglects to give the Greek
for this festival: tois typhoniois, "for Typhonianbeings/gods/devotees." Is
this a way of referringto various "Typhonic"forces annuallysupplicatedto
protect or to stay away, a kind of celebrationof demons? Or is it a nasty
designator for others' gods-Jews, for example, were occasionally viewed
as worshippersof Typhon?
The former alternativemight be most likely in light of a festival for
Nemesis attestedin second-centuryHerakleopolis(as a function of a temple
of "Artemis").This god, or species of supernaturalforce (of more masculine
character in Egypt), often represented as a griffon, seems to have been
carved or invoked specifically in its power over misfortune. Such apotropaic
divinities achieved particularimportancein the Roman period (other gods
include Petbe and Tutu). Nemesis, however, is often invoked in the plural,
"the Nemeses," an interestingparallel to "the Typhonians."
One would have hoped for Perpillou-Thomasto make some allusion to
festivals not explicitly mentioned in papyri. The great temple of the hippopotamus goddess Taweret in Oxyrhynchus, active well into the fourth
century, must have sponsored festivals of various kinds. When else, for
example, would the "revealinggods" in an affiliatedshrine have processed
Native Egyptian Religion in its Roman Guise
307
forth to offer traditionaloracles in the mid-third century (SB V.7634 =

P. Lond. inv. 2554, ed. C.H. Roberts, JEA 20 [1934]: 20-23, with Kramer
in P. Heid. IV.334)? A gold crown found in Roman Kysis (Khargaoasis)
and meant to be worn by a civic official or benefactorin a procession from
the town's Isis-Sarapistemple also implies a festival context-and a quite
elaborateone at that (see Redde, Le tresor de Douch [Cairo 1992]). A more
synthetic book on the Egyptian festival may be a desideratumfor future
scholars.
But the book does extend beyond the gods themselves to features of
festivals as they appear in the papyri. One chapter concerns ritual substances (oils, honey) and comestibles (festal breads,cakes, both emphasized
in Plutarch'sdescriptionof Egyptianfestivals), includinga useful discussion
of the decline of the Egyptian pork-taboounder Greek influence. Another
chapter describes the drama of the festival: the priests' ritual acts and the
spectacles that took place, all made financiallypossible, she shows, by temple funds, augmentedsubstantiallyby municipalfunds when the festival was
urbanor especially spectacular.And with the increasingimportanceof these
festal spectacles in the Roman period comes the increasingprominence of
itinerantperformers-actors, athletes, and poets-whose culture continued
throughoutthe Christianperiod.
Through this book Perpillou-Thomashas provided an enormous service
to the study of Greco-RomanEgyptiancultureand ancientreligious cultures
in general; and given the type of work to which this book might have led
we must deeply regret her untimely demise.
II.
As one has come to expect of the series, the volume of ANRWdevoted
to Egyptian religion of the Roman period exhibits the state of the art in
the collection and analysis of evidence, even if not the state of the art in
assessing broader implications. One might well compare this volume to
the third (1924) edition of Milne's History of Egypt Under Roman Rule
to see the vast increase in papyri, archaeology,and epigraphyavailable to
anyone working in this area. And one of the merits of this volume is,
indeed, the inclusion of other types of materialsas serious documentation
of Egyptian religion, in particularthe so-called "magical" texts and the
southernextension of Egyptian culture as revealed in Meroitic archaeology
and epigraphy.
308
David Frankfurter
Overviews of Egyptian religion in the Roman period are provided in articles by John Whitehorne ("The Pagan Cults of Roman Oxyrhynchus,"
pp. 3050-3091) and Laszlo Kakosy ("Probleme der Religion im r6merzeitlichen Agypten,"pp. 2894-3049). Where Kakosy offers a broad sweep
of the documentation,from the beginnings of Roman rule throughthe destructionof the Isis temple of Philae underJustinian,Whitehornescrutinizes
the now voluminous papyri from the city of Oxyrhynchus,showing the religious landscape of one cultural center during the Roman period. And
Oxyrhynchusis somewhat of a paradox. As replete with Hellenistic literary culture as any Mediterraneancity of the period, its major temple, still
in diminished operation in 462, was neverthelessdevoted to one of those
"dementedmonsters"that Roman authorslike Juvenal and Lucian loved to
ridicule: Taweret(Grk Thoeris), the hippopotamusgoddess associated with
fertility and childbirth. Whitehorneassembles all the data on this temple
and its local satellites, along with every other temple or cult attested in the
papyri. The article is helpfully systematic, with an alphabeticalaccounting
of gods revered and festivals sponsored.
Kakosy's importantoverview of the Romanperiod stresses the emperors'
differing attitudestowardEgypt and Egyptianreligion and the resultingfortunes of the temples. But it is easier to show fortune than misfortune as
a result of imperial sentiments;and Kakosy's stress on anti-"pagan"edicts
following the accession of Constantineseems to assume their effectiveness,
against much new thoughton the natureand enforcementof the Theodosian
code and despite Kakosy's own quite accurate accounting of Egyptian religion's persistence during this period. Considering the Egyptomania of
emperors like Septimus Severus, Kakosy's assertion of a steady decline in
Egyptian religion following the age of Caracallais confusing: would this
have been due to subtle spiritual causes, as some earlier historians have
argued, or economic causes, as Roger Bagnall has proposed more recently
(Ktema 13 [1988]: 285-296)? Nevertheless, the assemblage of archaeological, epigraphical, papyrological, historiographical,and hagiographical
(Greek and Coptic) sources in this section makes it the best systematic
history of Egyptian religion of the Roman period to date-the work of a
master.
Kakosy supplementsthis historicalsection with an assessmentof the gods
whose cults remainedsteady, declined, or grew in favor: Amun and another
Theban god, Montu, decline with the decreasing influence of the Theban
Native EgyptianReligion in its Roman Guise
309
priesthoods; popular cults of healing and revelation, like Amenhotep and

Bes, or of protection,like Tutuand Petbe, rise upon religious needs thatwere
independentof imperialsentimentand sanction. Additionalsections describe
the afterlife mythology of the period and the proliferationof "magical"texts
in Roman Egypt, both subjects covered in more detail and, in the case of
magic, with more contemporarysensibilities in otherarticlesin this volume.
Kakosy's discussion of abiding religion in Egypt shows once again the
special vitality of cults in the region of the first cataract. Not only the Isis
temple of Philae, a pilgrimagegoal for the nomadicBlemmyes, but also the
Mandulistemple of Kalabsha,itself built for the mutualdevotions of Roman
and Blemmye and in the fifth century a prize capturefor the Nubian king
Silko, suggest that the tribes and kingdoms south of "Egypt"represented
a continuationof Egyptian culture in many respects, even maintainingaspects of that culture when the Egyptian religious infrastructurewas in financial tailspin. Thus Inge Hofmann'sdiscussion of Meroitic religion ("Die
meroitischeReligion. Staatskultund Volksfr6mmigkeit,"
pp. 2801-2868; orthe
to
with
on
sections
major gods,
ganized according
temple rites, popular
Meroitic
a
and
useful
collection
of photos) and
Christianity,plus
early
piety,
Janice Yellin's "MeroiticFuneraryReligion" (pp. 2869-2892; according to
the evidence of some excavatednecropolises)go far in expandingthe scope
of what we think of as Egyptianreligious culture of the Roman period.
One of the more interesting aspects of Egyptian religious culture from
the perspective of the Roman historian is its utter absorptionand indigenization of the emperor cult. Three separate (and somewhat repetitive)
studies cover this phenomenon, by Eleanor Huzar ("EmperorWorship in
Julio-ClaudianEgypt,"pp. 3092-3143), Heinz Heinen ("Vorstufenund Anfinge des Herrscherkultesim r6mischen Agypten," pp. 3144-3180), and
Jean-ClaudeGrenier("L'Empereuret le Pharaon,"pp. 3181-3194). Huzar
and Heinen focus upon the very beginningsof emperor-deificationand worship in the context of imperialpolitics, while Grenierdiscusses the Egyptian
context of divinizingrulers. All agree: a) thatEgypt-priests and peasantshad long viewed the office of Pharaohin a divine context; b) that the Ptolemaic period in particularsaw an expansion of the conception of Pharaohto
include "foreigners"and the circulationof propaganda(like the AlexanderRomance) to justify this expansion;and c) that thereforefrom the beginning
of the Roman period emperorswere presentedin ritual and iconographyas
is most
pharaohs,with their full approval.This process of "pharaonization"
310
David Frankfurter
succinctly described from an Egyptological perspectivein Grenier'sarticle,

perhaps one of the most importantdiscussion of the phenomenonyet. But
Huzar and Heinen also addressthe contemporaneousneed of the emperors
to currythe ritualallegiance of those "Greco-Egyptian"constituenciesin the
cities, whose irascible tendencies (as shown in Alexandrianrevolts and the
circulationof "Acts of Pagan Martyrs")could be quite destabilizing.
A walk through the Egyptian wing of any major museum gives one a
profoundsense of the technical decline in mortuaryart from the New Kingdom throughthe Roman period: mummy wrappings,painted mythological
scenes, hieroglyphs all get markedly cruder. At the same time one finds
a growing custom of covering the mummies' heads with portraits of the
deceased, replacingthe more ancient traditionof sculpting a head-coveraccording to the iconographyof the mortuarygod Osiris. Might these changes
signify a decline in the ancient mortuarybeliefs, a synthesis with Hellenistic ideas of the soul, a greaterpersonalizationof the deceased that brought
people away from Egyptian tradition?
Two articles on the status of funerarycustom respond with an emphatic
negative. Lorelei Corcoran("Evidence for the Survival of PharaonicReligion in Roman Egypt: The PortraitMummy,"pp. 3316-3332) affirms the
continuity of classical mortuarytraditionsin a sampling of portraitmummies from the first and second centuries CE. Her sample, however, is so
limited historically that one may still wonder about the fate of such traditions after the second century. It is then with considerable gratitudethat
we turn to Fran9oise Dunand's one-hundred-pagereview of funerarypractices and beliefs in the Roman period ("Pratiqueset croyances funeraires
en Egypte romaine," pp. 3216-3315), which describes not only the continuity of traditionin mummification(a section preparedin collaboration
with Roger Lichtenberg)but also what can be gleaned culturallyfrom the
many necropolis excavations carried out throughoutEgypt up through the
late 1980's. Dunand devotes special attentionto excavationsin the western
oases, whose temples and villages seem to have retaineda much more thriving traditionalreligious culturethroughthe fourthcenturythan those in the
Nile valley. Here one finds such archaicpractices as covering the corpse's
head with gold; and one finds no distinctionin mortuaryprocedurebetween
Christians-whose presence in the oases is attested from the third century
on-and everyone else.
311
Dunand might have carriedthis last point further:it is not that "pagans"
and Christiansenjoyed a "coexistence pacifique"but ratherthat Egyptians
in general depended on a complex of rites, techniques, and mythological
idioms to negotiate this crucial rite of passage, death; and some of these
Egyptians also happenedto claim an allegiance of some sort to Christ, an
allegiance that had little bearing on their funeral expectations. It is thus
also a pity that Dunand did not follow the data at least briefly into the
Coptic period, where mummificationand a cult of the dead continued,even
in monasteries (see, e.g., Th. Baumeister,MartyrInvictus [Munster 1972]
51-86). Mortuarypractice is a subtle thing in most cultures, and people
rarely view it as conflicting with whatever"greattradition"happens to be
dominant.
Danielle Bonneau'sposthumouslypublishedarticleon the cult of the Nile
in Roman Egypt ("Ladivinit6du Nil sous le principaten Egypte,"pp. 31953215), largely a digest of her still-peerlessLa crue du Nil (Paris 1964), also
stops with the third century, a particularlyunfortunatelimitation since La
crue du Nil documentedthe Nile cult's continuity-in diverseforms-almost
to the Arab conquest. Missing in this resume, for example, is her collection
of ancientassociationsbetween the greatabbotShenouteof Atripe and ritual
control of the Nile surge. And the documentationitself has expandedsince
the book: inscriptionsat the temple of Akoris in Upper Egypt show ritual
observancearoundthe Nile surge still continuingin the later fourthcentury
(see E. Bernand,Inscriptionsgrecques et latines d'Akoris, Cairo 1988). A
pious hymn to the Nile was of sufficientlyelegant style to serve as a school
exercise in the late third/earlyfourthcentury(R. Cribiorein ZPE 106 [1995]:
97-106).
Three articles that do carry the subject of continuing traditionpast the
third century are those on "magical"texts by Robert Ritner on Demotic
Egyptian materials ("EgyptianMagical Practice under the Roman Empire:
the Demotic Spells and their Religious Context,"pp. 3333-3379), William
Brashearon Greek materials("The Greek Magical Papyri: an Introduction
and Survey,"pp. 3380-3684), and Sergio Pernigotti on Coptic texts ("La
magia copta: i testi," pp. 3685-3730). Insofar as these kinds of texts have
historically been used to characterizean occult or selfish piety endemic
to late antiquity or else a timeless repository of magical practice as used
throughoutthe Mediterraneanworld, the editors of ANRW are to be congratulatedfor placing the texts in their rightful context, as documents of
312
David Frankfurter
Egyptian religion(s) of the Roman period. The three articles take up over a
third of the volume and, in the case of Ritnerand Brashear,mean to convey
the state of the art in the study of "magical"texts.
Ritner assembles a corpus of "Demotic Magical Papyri"out of widely
scattered text-publications, usually of grimoires, formularies, with summaries of the texts' contents, critical assessments of their editions, and the
occasional corrective translation. In a second section, a digest of his Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Chicago 1993), he outlines
traditionalEgyptian concepts of an autonomousmagical force and argues
that the idiosyncrasiesof Roman attitudestowardthe native religions of the
empire led to the renderingof that force, intrinsicto priestly ritual, as negative and dangerous. His propositionlacks the historicalnuances on imperial
attitudesthat Kakosy provides, and his thesis depends to a large degree on
one papyrus,a late second-centuryRoman official's decree againstEgyptian
oracles (P. Yale 299), as the critical turning-pointin attitudestowardnative
ritual. The decree's actual effectiveness was probably so limited as not to
warrantthe historical importanceRitner gives to it.
Ritner's most importantpoint, however,is the attributionof the Demotic
magical corpus to the Egyptian priesthoodratherthan "magicians,"a conclusion based both on the language (Demotic Egyptian-illegible to ordinary Greeks and Egyptians) and the narrativeor ritual details in the spells.
Many of these texts, indeed, came togetheras large rituallibraries,of which
the major library,the so-called Anastasi hoard,consisted of both Greek and
Egyptiantexts of the thirdand fourthcenturies,all derivingfrom the priestly
city of Thebes.
Ritner then says with the force of an Egyptologist and Demotic linguist
what GarthFowdenhadproposedin his EgyptianHermes(Cambridge1986),
linking the magical and Hermetic libraries as genres of priestly literature.
And so, where scholarsused to conjureup images of Arthurianwizardsfrom
the extravaganciesof the individualspells, one now gets a clearer notion of
the collectors of magical texts: traditionalEgyptian "lector"priests, long
revered popularlyas wielders of ritual power, now assembling their lore in
a time of declining temples. This is precisely the image of the Egyptian
priest that Greco-Romanauthorsof the time were promulgating. (Another
Demoticist, W.J. Tait, has now responded to some of these propositions
in the conference volume Hundred-GatedThebes, ed. Vleeming [Leiden
1995].)
313
Given this importantshift in culturalmodels for contextualizingmagical

texts it is somewhatdishearteningto find William Brashearstill revertingto
terms like "magician"or "sorcerer"to describethe compilers and consulters
of the texts in his 300-page essay-cum-bibliographyon the Greek magical
texts. Such terms prejudgethe relationshipof the ritual specialist and traditional institutions,placing him (or, less probably,her) in a position separate
from and even opposed to the temple cult when he may well have been a
priest (as later Coptic ritual specialists were most likely Christianpriests
and monks).
And yet the service Brashearhas here renderedthe study of these widely
scattered and usually impenetrabletexts is incalculable. First collected by
Preisendanz in the now-canonical Papyri graecae magicae 1-2 (Stuttgart
21973-74), expandedby Daniel and Maltomini(Supplementummagicum 1-2
[Cologne 1990-92]) and republishedin translationunderBetz (GreekMagical Papyri in Translation,including the Demotic Spells [Chicago 1986]),
the corpus of Greek magical texts and the scholarshipdevoted to them continue to grow. Brashear's bibliographiesand cross-referencesencompass
the newest texts and their publications, the finds' Egyptian provenances,
a chronology of the texts, a directory of spell functions, and an immense
collection of secondary scholarshipthrough 1994. A leading papyrologist
himself, Brashearalso includes seventy pages of "corrections,translations,
and discussions" of publishedmagical texts.
Brashear's introductoryessay is particularlyattentive to the history of
scholarshipon magical texts. He addressesthe vital relationshipbetween grimoires or formularies(the typical genre in Preisendanz'sPGM) and amulets
and other materialspreparedfor ritualpurposes. An extensive discussion of
"foreign elements" disposes of the notion that the magical texts constituted
a syncretisticmishmash,instead (like Ritner)upholdingthe essential Egyptianness of the spells while admittingsome careful appropriationof Jewish
and Greek traditions. Brashearis also in line with currentscholarshipon
these materials in giving special importanceto the literaryconstructionof
the spells: the seemingly portentiousnonsense words (voces magicae) and
doodles (charakteres),the invocationsof myth (historiolae), and overlapping
ritual genres like the oracle, the horoscope, and the curse-tablet. Even if
these studies do not provideany sort of masterkey to the intentionsor social
context of the ancient ritual expert they do lay out with particularclarity a
type of text that thrivedon the borderbetween the literaryand the oral.
314
David Frankfurter
Pernigotti'sbrief selection of Coptic magical texts (in Italian translation,

with introduction and bibliography) then appears like an afterthoughtto
the volume. Intendedperhapsjust to whet one's appetite to delve into the
sources oneself, such an abbreviatedstudy of a corpus whose cultural and
religious significancecertainlyrivalsthatof the Demotic and Greekmaterials
seems ratherto reflect the editors' unfortunatetendency to disregardCoptic
materials.
But Coptic itself developed among the Egyptian priesthoodsof the Roman period, expressing an endeavorvery much distinctiveof the Hellenistic
and Roman periods: to preserve nativeparole within the increasingly popular langue of Greek (in Coptic's case, Egyptiangrammarwithin the Greek
alphabet). The subsequentcultivationof Coptic in Gnostic conventicles and
Pachomianmonasterieshardlytakes one beyondthe culturalscope of the Roman period that ANRWII (Principat)seeks to address. The Coptic magical
texts pose importantquestions about ritualexpertise and the uses of writing
in the fourth and later centuries: Do these texts representan underground
literatureof freelance experts or a monastic sideline? How could ancient
Egyptian myths be recalled in Coptic texts of the fifth or sixth century?
Who would have collected and owned such a thing as the trilingual-Greek,
Coptic, and Aramaic-spell collection now in Milan (ed. Bresciani et al.,
SCO 29 [1979]), only the Coptic portionof which Pernigottiincludes in his
selection (#9)? The reader may decide at this point to go to another recent collection of Coptic spells, MarvinMeyer and RichardSmith'sAncient
ChristianMagic: Coptic Textsof Ritual Power (San Francisco 1994), which
offers many more texts and much fuller commentary.
In few of these areas of continuity could Egypt be said to be representative of the wider empire. In its mortuarytraditions,in its iconographyof
the emperors, in the centralityof the Nile and its cycles for religious life,
and in the authorityof its priesthoodsEgypt seems to have been unique in
the ancient world. But by the same token Egypt has attracteda surfeit of
anachronisticconclusions about culturalcharacter,persistence, and conversion, particularlyin relationto the rise of Christianity.In their sophisticated
massing of data on continuingEgyptianreligion these two volumes-all but
unavailable to the general buyer and so destined for library collectionsshould at least make it harderin the future for historiansto write the kind
of assessment that Sir HaroldBell could in the fifties:
315
Later [Egyptian]paganismat its best has a singularattractiveness.It died with a

kind of mellow splendour,like a beautiful sunset, but dying it was. It had been
conquered by the truer and finer religion, for which it had itself preparedthe
way, a religion which at last broughtthe solution of problemswhich paganism
had posed but to which it had found no answer. [Bell, Cults and Creeds in
Graeco-RomanEgypt [Liverpool 1953], 105.]
Department of History
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824-3586, USA
DAVIDFRANKFURTER
BOOK REVIEWS
D. O'LEARY,Arguing the Apocalypse. A Theory of Millennial
STEPHEN
Rhetoric-New York/Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress 1994 (314 pages)
ISBN 0-19-508045-9.
As the end of the millenniumdraws near, apocalypticismattractsnumerable scholars of various disciplines. The study of an American scholar of
communication,Stephen O'Leary, is particularlyworthwhile for historians
of religion. Instead of explaining apocalypticism by sociological or psychological theories ("mechanictheories"p. 9) he has studied it as part of a
public discourse and analyzed its rhetoricalstrategies. Rhetoric means the
public, persuasive,constitutiveand social dimension of speach. Apocalypse
is representedby such kind of speach and can be studied accordingly. By
referringto the experience of evil and by propagating"Time must have a
stop" (p. 31) apocalypse attemptsto solve the problem of theodicy. Chapter 3 From Eschatology to Apocalypse: Dramatic and ArgumentativeForm
in the Discourse of Prophetic Interpretationcontains the main argumentof
the book. Apocalypse is based on eschatologicaldoctrines. But in contrastto
eschatology it expects an imminentend. Where the question of chronology
is moot, audiences move from eschatology to apocalypse (p. 61). The narration about the end of the word resembles literaryforms of drama:tragedy
(unhappyending) with elements of comedy (happy ending). In response to
the questions of the audience: "How do you know?" and "When?" the
various forms of apocalypticdiscourse are shaped.
O'Leary illustratesthe advantageof his approachby two Americancases:
the Millerite movement in the 19th century AD (chapters4 and 5) and the
bestselling book of Hal Lindsey The Late Great Planet Earth (chapter6).
In both cases apocalypse has argued for a pessimistic attitudetowards the
future. Failureof social reformin 19th centuryUSA and life in the shadow
of nuclear threat has preparedthe ground for the sensitivity of a wider
audience regardingan apocalypticview of history.
NUMEN,Vol.43
Book Reviews
317
The author presents the thesis of his book in a lucid and convincing
manner. It is a major contributionto a comparativestudy of apocalypse.
UniversitatBremen
Fachbereich9
Postfach 330440
D-28334 Bremen
HANSG. KIPPENBERG
ANTOINE
FAIVRE,The Eternal Hermes: From Greek God to Alchemical
Magus, trans. J. Godwin. GrandRapids, MI: Phanes 1995 (210 pp.)
ISBN 0-933999-52-6 (pbk.) $18.95.
Antoine Faivre, Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes (Section des Sciences Religieuses, Sorbonne),proposesto reestablish
a "Hermeticratio" as an alternativeto the dominant"Promethean"(pp. 14,
68, 70). By this, he means "a planetarydialogue ... [that]deprovincializ[es]
ethnology (Mircea Eliade) and show[s] what is common and irreduciblein
the great traditionsof Gnosis and the Sacred (Seyyed Hussein Nasr ...),"
making thereby "comparativemythology a spiritualexercise that leads to a
form of knowledge (JosephCampbell)"(pp. 68-69). In this collection of six
previously publishedessays, Faivre charts,towardsthis goal, a brief history
of "Hermesin the Westernimagination"from antiquityto modernity(chaps.
1 and 2), explores the confluence of the god Hermes with the euhemerized
Hermes Trismegistus (chap. 3), reflects on the "urban"Hermes (chap. 4),
traces the Hermes of Westerniconography(chap. 5), and concludes with a
rich bibliographicalessay on Hermeticaand Hermeticallusions.
Common to all of these essays is attentionto the sometimes neglected
influence of Hermetic traditionsupon Western culture and, especially, its
esoteric rivulets: "One should, and can,"Faivre writes, "discoverthe name
of Hermes-Mercurythrough every epoch ..." (p. 50). This task lends an
ahistorical cast to Faivre's work throughout: "... at the same time [one
should, and can, search] for his active presence in places where his name
and explicit attributesare wanting" (p. 50; see also pp. 60, 65, 76, 104105, 117)-a cast familiar to the work of those admired by Faivre (and
cited above). Nevertheless, the historianof religion will find assembled in
this brief volume a useful overview of mythic informationabout, artistic
NUMEN,Vol.43
Book reviews
318
representationsof, and historicalreferences to one of the more fascinating,

if admittedlyelusive, figures of Westernmyth.
The University of Vermont
Departmentof Religion
481 Main Street
Burlington,Vermont05405, USA
LUTHER
H. MARTIN
HANANYAGOODMAN(Ed.), Between Jerusalem and Benares: Studies in
Judaism and Hinduism. Albany: State University of New York Press

(334 p.) ISBN 0-7914-1715-8 $18.95 (cloth).
The title of this welcome book is derived from oft-quoted remarksby
the late Rabbi AbrahamJoshuaHeschel and by sociologist of religion Peter
Berger.
Heschel's then-radicalcomment, entirely supportedby this volume, was
on the historical arbitrarinessof Judaismbeing viewed as a "western"religion. It might have been otherwise. "[O]urintellectual position situated as
it is between Athens and Jerusalemis not an ultimateone. Providencemay
some day create a situationwhich would place us between the river Jordan
and the river Ganges ..."
Berger first coined the phrase adoptedby this volume in his 1979 essay,
"Between Jerusalemand Benares: The Coming Contestationof Religions."
However, Berger'spoint is the opposite of Heschel's; he assumes Hindu and
Judaicworldviewsto be "antithetical,"and goes on to arguefor open-minded
interreligiousdialogue.
The editor of this volume, HananyaGoodmanis to be applaudedfor two
things. First, he broughttogetherthese twelve scholarsfrom America, Israel,
Britain and France arounda cogent central theme: that the situation about
which Rabbi Heschel speculated has in fact transpired,that there are and
have been culturalresonancesand historicalinteractionsbetween Jerusalem
and Benares. The contributorsto this volume are among the leaders in this
emerging field of Hindu-JudaicStudies; in fact, this volume begins to define
that very field.
NUMEN. Vol. 43
Book reviews
319
Second, Goodman's introductoryessay is outstanding, one of the best

contributionsin the book. It is a surveyof the literature,from La Crequiene's
1704 The Agreementof the Customsof the East-Indianswith those of the
Jews, and other Ancient People up to Rodger Kamenetz's 1994 best-seller,
The Jew in the Lotus. Goodman'sendnotes alone are worth the price of the
volume.
David Shulmanprovidesa briefprefaceto whet one's appetite,and Wendy
Doniger offers a second introductoryessay which speculates about how
Hindu myths have become meaningful in the lives of non-religiousJewish
scholars.
The remainingessays are divided into two parts:the first traces historical
encountersbetween Indic and Judaiccivilizations, and the second examines
culturalresonances between Hinduisms and Judaisms. Both sections make
valuable contributionsbut, in this reviewer's estimation, the first section is
the more successful.
Chaim Rabin of Hebrew University opens the historical section with a
study of loan-words in Biblical Hebrew from Indian languages, especially
as these words carrymaterialand culturalmeanings. This is a scrupulouslyresearched,importantessay which dates Hebrew-Sanskritinteractionsfrom
the tenth century BCE.
David Flusser, also of HebrewUniversity,speculatesaboutIndianorigins
of a Midrash about how the PatriarchAbraham"discovered"monotheism.
Flusser's contention-that the second-centuryBCE Midrashis a re-telling of
a sixth-centuryBCE Upanishadas mediatedby PersianZoroastriancultureis intriguingif not entirely compelling.
The Sorbonne's Francis Schmidt discusses how Hellenized Jews viewed
India, and how their perceptionsdiffered from the Greek historianswhom
they emulated. This intriguingessay traces Greek perceptions of Hindus,
whom they considered akin to the "JewishBrahmins"on the eastern fringe
of their empire; Aristotle was of the opinion that the Jews are descended
from Indiabecause of theirphilosophicacumen. The essay closely examines
Philo of Alexandriaand Titus Flavius Josephus,concluding that while Hellenized Jewish writers of late antiquityrelied heavily on Greek authorities,
neverthelessthey encounteredIndia in terms of their own struggle to maintain an identity in the face of an overwhelming neighbor, namely Greece
and Greek culture itself.
320
Book reviews
Dennis Hudson of Smith College provides a thoroughlydelightful study

of a nineteenth-centuryHindufrom Sri Lanka,ArumugaNavalar'sencounter
with Judaismas he learned about it from Methodistmissionaries. For him,
the so-called "Old Testament"was an inspirationfor his struggles against
Protestantmissionaries. Navalarfound similaritiesbetween TempleJudaism
and his own Shaivafaith-including the priestly/sacrificialform of workship,
concerns about purity/pollution,dietary matters,ritual prostration,etc. He
used what little he knew aboutJudaismas a weapon against Protestantmissionaries, whom he chided for their nonobservanceof the commandments
transmittedthrough Moses, and then went on to criticize the Pauline disjunction between faith and meritoriousacts. This is one the freshest essays
in the volume.
Finally, Hebrew University sociologist Shalva Weil continues the discussion of historicalencountersbetween Hinduismsand Judaismsas embodied
in the community of Indian Jews of the KonkanCoast known as the Bene
Israel. The Bene Israel were "lost" Jews who maintainedrudimentaryJudaic practices overlaidwith Hindu accretions. Her essay describesthe Bene
Israels' unique observanceof Yom Kippur.As the Bene Israel have entered
the Judaic mainstream, many of their Hinduized practices have dropped
away, but in Israel some are preservedas a way of maintainingtheir unique
identity-no longer as practitionersof a foreign religion in India, but as an
ethnic group within Israel.
The second section of the book explores "culturalresonances"between
Hinduisms and Judaisms,and begins with University of Californiaat Santa
Barbarascholar BarbaraHoldrege's study of how Veda and Torah are understood in brahmanicaland rabbinic traditions. More than books, both
are understoodas blueprintsfor creation, as divine speech (Shabda/Dabar),
and as embodied in the People. Holdrege's essay is rich, thoughtful and
suggestive, but its length-eighty pages-might daunt all but the dedicated
reader.
Bernard Jackson, a law professor at the University of Kent, examines
Judaic and Hindu sacred law-Halakha and Dharmashastra-and how these
ideal systems were relatedto their enforcement.Jackson'sessay is also suggestive, but as I began to read I felt I was overhearinga conversationbegun
some time before my listening. The lack of a backgroundin philosophy of
law impairedmy reading, but with help from a philosophy colleague I was
able to get on track, and from there on the reading was a pleasure.
Book reviews
321
The next two essays are intendedto be read in tandem. ElizabethChalierVisuvalingam and Charles Mopsik, both of Paris, explore the themes of
Unity and Union, the first in Hindu Tantrismand the latter in Kabbalah.
While each essay is tradition-specific,Mopsik concludes his essay with
reflections based on his reading of Chalier-Visuvalingam.Both essays are
erudite and intriguing, but whether this attempt at academic dialogue is
ultimately successful is left to the reader.
The volume concludes on a very strong note. MargaretChatterjee,formerly of Delhi Universityand now at Oxford,comparestwo modernthinkers,
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the Chief Rabbi at Jerusalem, and Sri Aurobindo, the seminal evolutionaryHindu theologian. They were contemporaries; both were concerned about the relation of mysticism to society;
both wrote with one eye towardtheir own faith communitieswhile the other
gazed beyond; both relied heavily upon the archetype of light; and both
understoodspiritualityas evolutionary.
Indeed, Goodmanis to be commendedfor bringingus these twelve essays.
They are of a high caliber and the book is pioneering. But precisely in their
selection a serious flaw is revealed. All of the authorsare western;thereis no
Hindu voice to be heard in the inherently"dialogical"enterpriseof HinduJewish studies (except for the one heard throughHudson's essay). Despite
my celebratingits publicationandrelishingits contents,the book is not really
betweenJerusalemand Benares, so much as Benaresas seenfrom Jerusalem.
Departmentof Religious Studies
Florida InternationalUniversity
Miami, FL 33199, USA
NATHAN
KATZ
Rules and Regulationsof BrahmanicalAsceticism. Yatidharmasamuccaya

of
YadavaPrakasa. Edited and translatedby PATRICK
OLIVELLE
(SUNY
Series in Religion)-Albany, NY: State University of New York Press
1995 (458 p.) ISBN 0-7914-2283-6 (hardcover)US$ 57.50; ISBN
0-7914-2284-4 (pbk.) US$ 18.95.
Patrick Olivelle has more than anyone else the last twenty years contributedto our knowledge of the institution of Hindu asceticism. His latest book contains a translationof the Yatidharmasamuccaya
("Collection
NUMEN, Vol. 43
322
Book reviews
of Ascetic Laws") of Yadava Prakasa (pp. 27-180), a critical edition of

the Sanskrit text (pp. 181-385) and an introduction(pp. 1-26). Yatidharmasamuccaya belongs to a subclass of medieval Indian literatureon law
which dealt with the dharma of ascetics (yatidharma). It is the earliest
availableof the yatidharmatexts and became especially authoritativefor the
has eleven chapters and
Sri-Vaisnavatradition. The Yatidharmasamuccaya
the chapter headings give a good indication of the text's content: 1. The
Rule Sanctioning ItinerantAsceticism; 2. Age of Eligibility of a Candidate
for ItinerantAsceticism; 3. Examinationof Insignia; 4. The Procedureof
Renunciation; 5. Principal Activities; 6. Daily Practices; 7. Proper Conduct; 8. Rules of Insignia and Related Penances; 9. Wanderingand Rain
Residence; 10. Penances, and 11. The Procedureof an Ascetic's Funeral.
The text provides a fascinatingpeep into the world of medieval Brahmanical asceticism. One of the many interesting points Olivelle takes up in
the introduction,and which is plentifully illustratedin the text itself, is how
Yatidharmasamuccaya
exemplifiesthe "processof domesticatingasceticism"
(p. 17). He argues that while asceticism was in its origin and early history
in many ways opposed to the centralvedic ideas and rituals,it became integrated into the normalrituallife so much so that the ascetic was considered
more like an exalted type of vedic householderthan someone who contradicted the vedic value system. An interestingillustrationof this is the fact
is greatly concerned
that the ascetic as presentedin Yatidharmasamuccaya
with rituals and behavior aimed at preservingpurity. This obsession with
purity he has in common with the ordinaryBrahmanicalcommunity and
Olivelle notes that "the ascetic is not an outsider to that community but a
significant and integral part of it" (pp. 25-26). This contrastssharply with
other models of understandingof Hindu ascticism and reminds us that the
undertstandingof Hinduismis not of a synchronicstructurebut of phenomdescribesin greatdetail
ena contextualizedin history. Yatidharmasamuccaya
the daily life of the ascetic from the normativepoint of view. It gives detailed knowledge of the model for ascetic behaviorand, besides its intrinsic
and historical interest,could also be a comparativetool for the investigation
of the practices of contemporaryHindu ascetics.
Department of the History of Religions
University of Bergen
Sydnesplass 9
N-5007 Bergen, Norway
KNUT A. JACOBSEN
Book reviews
323
VALERIE
HANSEN,Negotiating Daily Life in TraditionalChina: How Ordinary People Used Contracts. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press 1995 (pp. XIV + 285) ISBN 0-300-06063.
One of the foundingfathersof 19thcent. anthropology,himself essentially
interestedin legal history,describedculturalevolution as moving from "status to contract."WhetherSir HenryMaine was rightor not is not our concern
here. At any rate, the institutionof contracts,in literate societies, as an instrumentfor "negotiatingdaily life" is very ancientand it served not only for
regulating transactionsbetween partnersbut also as an "insurance"against
possible subsequentlitigationand courtproceedings. ValerieHansen'sstudy
is a majorand often exciting contributionto Chinese social historywhich will
be relished also by Silk Road students since many of her earliest examples
come from Turfanand Dunhuang. (The Yamamoto-Ikedaedition of these
documentscontinuesto prove its almost limitless useful-ness). Whatrenders
the book of such great interest also to historiansof religion is the fact that
in about a thirdof the documentscited people are contractingnot only with
neighbours,landlords,tenants,tradersetc. but also with the gods. For if anything should go wrong (e.g., doubts should arise regardingthe legal title to a
grave-site)the issue would probablybe dealt with in the courts of the underworld where possession of the tomb-contractshould enable the deceased to
justify his claims. There is also the interestingquestionwhetherand to what
extent earthlyauthoritiescould intervenein mattersthat were properlyunder
the jurisdiction of the underworld.(The Daoists thoughtthis was possible).
In about a thirdof the 200 documentsused one of the contractingpartnersis
not a neighbourbut a denizen of anotherworld. Pp. 239-241 list the name
of gods appearingas sellers in tomb-contracts.Since in the underworldeverythingis "theotherway round,"it should not come as a surprisethat many
tomb inscriptionsare in "mirrorscript;"cf. also the 16th cent. mirror-image
contractin duplicate,one copy for the deceased couple and one for the gods,
reproducedpp. 186-187. Readersinterestedin the underworldmore than in
legal and social history may also want to see Hansen's shorter"Why Bury
Contractsin Tombs"in Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie8 (1995): 59-66.
Hebrew University
Departmentof ComparativeReligion
Mount Scopus
Jerusalem91905, Israel
R.J. ZwI WERBLOWSKY
NUMEN,Vol.43
Book reviews
324
FRANZ OVERBECKWerkeund Nachlafi. Band 1: Schriften bis 1873. In
Zusammenarbeitmit Marianne Stauffacher-Schaubhg. von Ekkehard

W. Stegemannund Niklaus Peter-Stuttgart, Weimar:VerlagJ.B. Metzler 1994 (X + 337 p.), ISBN 3-476-00961-9 (cloth) DM 98.00.
Werkeund Nachlafi. Band 2: Schriften bis 1880. In
FRANZOVERBECK
Zusammenarbeitmit MarianneStauffacher-Schaub
hg. von EkkehardW.
und
Rudolf
Weimar:
Stegemann
Brandle-Stuttgart,
VerlagJ.B. Metzler
1994 (IX + 577 p.), ISBN 3-476-00963-7 (cloth) DM 128.00.
Franz Overbeck(1837-1905) taughtNew TestamentStudies and Old Ecclestical History at the University of Basel from 1870 to 1897. He has
been in the shadow of his famous friend FriedrichNietzsche until today.
Both friends had an immediate intellectual interchangeand a close spiritual affinity. In 1873 they publishedbooks at the same company,Nietzsche
his first "UnzeitgemaBeBetrachtung"and Overbeck his book: "Uber die
Christlichkeitunsererheutigen Theologie." Both settled the score with boring members of the educatedclass and dull culturaltheologicans. Overbeck
kept faith with Nietzsche when he went insane and fought againstthe heavy
distortionsof Nietzsche's unpublishedworks by ElisabethF6rster-Nietzsche.
Today Overbeckhas been discovered as an independentdiagnosticianof
modern culture. A commission led by EkkehardW. Stegemann is editing
Overbeck's "Worksand unpublishedworks" in 9 volumes. The first two
volumes prove the outsider of the 19th century protestanttheology to be a
first rate historian.
Volume 1 contains the hithertounpublishedlecture "Ueber die Anfange
des M6nchthums"from 1867, an exegetic study on the formulaby Paul "in
the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8, 3) published in 1869, his lecture
after taking up his office at Basel "UeberEntstehungund Recht einer rein
historischenBetrachtungder NeutestamentlichenSchriftenin der Theologie"
from 1871, a study "Ueberdas VerhaltnisJustins des Martyrerszur Apostelgeschichte,"printedin 1872 and the first publicationof "Christlichkeit."
The remarks and modifications of the second publication from 1903 are
presented.
Volume 2 begins with the "Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche"
from 1875 followed by the discourses "Ueber die Auffassung des Streits
des Paulus mit Petrus in Antiochien (Gal. 2, 1lff.) bei den Kirchenvatern"
from 1877 and "Ausdem Briefwechsel des Augustinmit Hieronymus."This
NUMEN, Vol. 43
Book reviews
325
volume ends with "Zwei Abhandlungen"and "ZurGeschichtedes Kanons."

In these discourses Overbeckexplains his famous hypothesis that it is "the
natureof all canonizationto make its objects unrecognizable."
Overbeck is a "historianof discontinuity"(N. Peter). He shows with his
analysis of the literary forms that there is a principal difference between
early Christian"originalliterature"and the texts of the old church,in which
the withdrawn"earlyChristanity"is secularized. In his opinion the "liberal
theology" and the contemporaryculturalprotestantismwas a falsificationof
the true and original Christianity.He came out against Adolf von Harnack
in a very aggressiveway, because in his view von Harnackrepresented,what
he despised, namely the closeness of mind and power, the culturalsynthesis
of faith and knowledge and the renewal of a Christiantraditionto legitimate
the GermanEmpire. The "early Christianity"or the faith of the "primeval
times" were for Overbeckthe only true faith. Admittedlyno way led back
to these "primevaltimes." Thereforethe professor of theology announced
that it was not possible to be a Christianany longer and confessed in public
his unbelief. However, he did not lose his office in Basel. This criticism
of the contemporaryChristianitywas strongly connected with a fascinating
analysis of modernsemireligiousideologies, for example nationalism,liberal
belief and admirationof art and culture.
The editors have given excellent comments on Overbeck's texts. Each
volume contains an index of the paperspublishedby himself and published
after his death, and an index of the quoted literature.In additiontwo lists of
names are given, one listing the persons namedby Overbeckand one listing
the persons named in the introductions.
The editors give detailed informationabout the genesis of the texts and
the context of the research. The explanatoryremarksdeserve praise. Allusions and quotationsare proved, historicalrelations are explained and short
biographicalnotes introducethe persons mentionedby Overbeck.
The first two volumes show that Nietzsche's friend not only is a classic critic of theology, but an importantdiagnostician of modernity. In his
critique of culture he formulatedmain ideas, which are still central today.
His sceptical polemics against bourgeoise cultural Christianityreflect also
his suffering as an intellectual, living in a civilisation, (which was in his
view) characterizedby a loss of individuality,commercialisation,decline
of education and a loss of real freedom. ThereforeOverbecktried to gain
freedom in propagatinga radical individualism. What meant that he had to
326
Book reviews
fend for himself without a religious tie: "The strict individualistmust be

able to do without God."
Universitatder BundeswehrHamburg
Evangelische Theologie und Sozialethik
Postfach 70 08 22
D-22008 Hamburg
FRIEDRICH WILHELM GRAF
PUBLICATIONS
RECEIVED
Periodicals
'Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones, 0 (1995).
Journalof Objective Studies, 6 (1994), 2.
MonumentaNipponica, 51 (1996), 1; 2.
Przeglad Religioznawczy, 4/178 (1995).
Religion and Law Review, 4 (1995), 2.
WillRoscoe, Priests of the Goddess: GenderTransgressionin Ancient Religion

Karen Pechilis Prentiss, A Tamil Lineage for Saiva SiddhantaPhilosophy
Charles S. Prebish, Saiksa-Dharmas Revisited: Further Considerations of
MahasamghikaOrigins
Book Reviews
Brian K. Smith, Ritual Perfection and Ritual Sabotage in the Veda

Alan Cole, Upside Down/Right Side Up: A Revisionist History of Buddhist
Funeralsin China
Book Reviews
25 (1996), 1
RELIGION,
CharlotteHardman,Vitality and Depression: the Concept of Saya as an Institution in East Nepal
Kim Knott, Hindu Women, Destiny and Stridharma
Catherine Robinson, Neither East nor West: Some Aspects of Religion and
Ritual in the IndianArmy of the Raj
Gregory W.Dawes, Theology and Religious Studies in the University: 'Some
Ambiguities' Revisited
Review Colloquium: Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers
Book Reviews
NUMEN, Vol. 43
328
FUR RELIGIONSWISSENSCHAFT,
3 (1995), 2
ZEITSCHRIFT
MartinBaumann, 'MerkwurdigeBundesgenossen'und 'naive Sympathisanten'.

Die Ausgrenzung der Religionswissenschaftaus der bundesdeutschenKontroverse um neue Religionen
Horst Junginger,Ein KapitelReligionswissenschaftwahrendder NS-Zeit: HansAlexanderWinkler (1900-1945)
Detlef Pollak, Was ist Religion? Probleme der Definition
Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Die frihe Religion der Turken im Spiegel ihrer inschriftlichenQuellen
Books
Phra PrayudhPayutto, Buddhadhamma.NaturalLaws and Values for Life. Translated by Grant A. Olson. SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies, ed. by Matthew
Kapstein-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, XXIV +
302 p., $19.95, ISBN 0-7914-2632-7 (pbk.); ISBN 0-7914-26321-9 (hc.).
Horst, Pieter van der (Ed.), Aspects of Religious Contact and Conflict in the Ancient World. Utrechtse Theologische Reeks, no. 31-Utrecht, Faculteit der
Godgeleerdheid,UniversiteitUtrecht, 1995, 166 p., f 39.00 ISBN 90-72235-320 (paper).
Feuerstein, Georg / Kak, Subhash / Frawley, David, In Search of the Cradle of
Civilization. New Light on Ancient India-Wheaton, Ill. / Adyar, Madras,
Quest Books, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1995, XX + 341 p., ISBN
08356-0720-8 (cloth).
L'homme indo-europeen & le sacre, by R. Boyer, E. Campanile, M. Delahoutre,
M. Gimbutas, G. Gnoli, J. Varenne and J. Ries. Traite d'anthropologie du
sacrd, vol. 2-Aix-en-Provence, editions Edisud, 1989, 302 p., Frs. 195.00,
ISBN 2-85744-779-5 (hc.).
Ebersole, Gary L., Capturedby Texts. Puritanto Postmoder Images of IndianCaptivity. Series: Studies in Religion and Culture-Charlottesville, VA, University
Press of Virginia, 1995, 322 p., $45.00, ISBN 0-8139-1606-2 (cloth); $18.50,
ISBN 0-8139-1607-0 (paper).
Ranger,Terence, Are We Not Also Men? The SamkangeFamily & African Politics
in Zimbabwe 1920-64. Series: Social Historyof Africa-Harare, BaobabBooks
/ Cape Town, David Philip / Portsmouth,NH, Heinemann / London, James
Currey Publishers, 1995, 211 p., UKPP ?35.00, ISBN 0-85255-666-3 (cloth);
?12.95, ISBN 0-85255-618-7 (paper).
329
Hallgren, Roland, The Vital Force. A Study of Ase in the Traditionaland NeotraditionalCulture of the YorubaPeople. Lund Studies in African and Asian
Religions (ed. by Tord Olsson), vol. 10-Lund, Departmentof History of Religions, University of Lund, 1995, 112 p., SEK 132.00, ISBN 91-22-01699-0
(paper).
Ludwig, Frieder,Das Modell Tanzania. Zum Verhaltniszwischen Kirche und Staat
wahrendder Ara Nyerere (mit einem Ausblick auf die Entwicklungbis 1994)Berlin, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1995, 290 p., DM 78.00, ISBN 3-496-02575-1
(pbk.).
FragmentapoetarumLatinorumepicorumet lyricorumpraeterEnniumet Lucilium,
hg. von Post W. Morel, Carolus Buechner, Jiirgen Blansdorf. 3. bearbeitete
und erweiterte Ausgabe, Bibliotheca Teubneriana,lateinisch-Stuttgart, B. G.
TeubnerVerlagsgesellschaft,1995, XXVI + 494 p., DM 195.00, ISBN 3-81541371-0 (cloth).
Merkelbach,Reinhold, Isis regina-Zeus Sarapis. Die griechisch-agyptischeReliLeipzig, B.G. Teubner,1995, XXII
gion nach den Quellen dargestellt-Stuttgart,
+ 722 p., ISBN 3-519-07427-3 (cloth).
Penelhum,Terence,Reason and Religious Faith-Boulder, Colorado,WestviewPress
(The Focus Series), 1996, 166 p., $44.00, ISBN 0-8133-2035-6 (he); $15.95,
ISBN 0-8133-2036-4 (pbk.).
Campany, Robert Ford, Strange Writing. Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval
China. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture-Albany, NY, State
University of New York Press, 1996, 524 p., $24.95, ISBN 0-7914-2660-2
(pbk.); ISBN 0-7914-2659-9 (hardcover).
Frauwallner,Erich, Studies in AbhidharmaLiteratureand the Origins of Buddhist
Philosophical Systems. Translatedfrom the Germanby Sophie Francis Kidd
under the supervision of Ernst Steinkellner. SUNY Series in Indian Thought:
Texts and Studies-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995,
247 p., $14.95, ISBN 0-7914-2700-5 (pbk.); ISBN 0-7914-2699-8 (hardcover).
Rennie, Bryan S., ReconstructingEliade. Making Sense of Religion. Forewordby
Mac Linscott Ricketts-Albany, NY, State Universityof New YorkPress, 1996,
293 p., $19.95, ISBN 0-7914-2764-1 (pbk.); ISBN 0-7914-2763-3 (hardcover).
Boismard, Marie-Emile, Jesus, un homme de Nazareth. Raconte par Marc l'6vangeliste. Series: Th6ologies-Paris, Les Editions du Cerf, 1996, 216 p., FF
95.00, ISBN 2-204-05361-9 (pbk.).
Kieffer, Ren6, Jesus raconte. Th6ologie et spiritualitedes evangiles. Series: Lire
la Bible-Paris, Les Editions du Cerf, 1996, 209 p., FF 90.00, ISBN 2-20405328-7 (pbk.).
Aristotle, On the HeavensI & II. With an Introduction,Translationand Commentary
by StuartLeggatt-Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 1995, 273 p., ?35.00, ISBN
0-85668-662-X (cloth); ?14.95, ISBN 0-85668-663-8 (pbk.).
330
Pedersen, Nils Ame, Studies in The Sermon on the Great War. Investigationsof
a Manichaean-Coptictext from the fourthcentury-Aarhus, Aarhus University
Press, 1996, 508 p., $40.00, ISBN 87-7288-559-9 (cloth).
Winninge,Mikael, Sinnersand the Righteous. A ComparativeStudy of the Psalms of
Solomon and Paul's Letters. ConiectaneaBiblica, New TestamentSeries 26Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995, 372 p., ISBN 91-22-01638-4 (pbk.).
Belier, Wouter, De sakrale samenleving. Theorievormingover religie in het discours van Durkheim,Mauss, Huberten Hertz-Maarssen, Uitgeverij'De Ploeg',
1996, 152 p., f 39.50, ISBN 2-90-6548-09 (pbk.).
Duara,Prasenjit,Rescuing Historyfrom the Nation. QuestioningNarrativesof Modern China-Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1996, 275
p., $32.00, ISBN 0-226-16721-6 (cloth).
Meyer, Marvin and Mirecki, Paul (Eds.), Ancient Magic and Ritual Power. Series:
Religions in the Graeco-RomanWorld, ed. by R. van den Broek, H.J.W.Drijvers, H.S. Versnel, vol. 129-Leiden, New York, Koln, E. J. Brill, 1995, 476
p., ISBN 90-04-10406-2 (cloth).
Lorenzen, David N., Praises to a Formless God. Nirguni Texts from North India.
SUNY Series in Religious Studies-Albany, NY, State Universityof New York
Press, 1996, 303 p., $16.95, ISBN 0-7914-2806-0 (pbk.).
Fort, Andrew0. and PatriciaY. Mumme(Eds.), Living Liberationin HinduThought
-Albany, NY, State Universityof New YorkPress, 1996, 278 p., $19.95, ISBN
0-7914-2706-4 (pbk.).
Kaplan,EdwardK., Holiness in Words. AbrahamJoshuaHeschel's Poetics of Piety.
SUNY Series in Judaica-Albany, NY, State University of New York Press,
1996, 213 p., $19.95, ISBN 0-7914-2868-0 (pbk.).
Queen, ChristopherS. and Sallie B. King (Eds.), Engaged Buddhism. Buddhist
Liberation Movements in Asia-Albany, NY, State University of New York
Press, 1996, 446 p., $24.95, ISBN 0-7914-2844-3 (pbk.).
Tuckett, ChristopherM., Q and the History of Early Christianity. Studies on QEdinburgh,T & T Clark, 1996, 492 p., ?29.95, ISBN 0-567-09742-0 (cloth).
Logan, Alastair H. B., Gnostic Truthand ChristianHeresy. A Study in the History
of Gnosticism-Edinburgh, T & T Clark, 1996, 373 p., ?24.95, ISBN 0-56709733-1 (cloth).
Stemberger,Gunter,Introductionto the Talmudand Midrash. Translatedand edited
by MarkusBockmuehl. Second Edition-Edinburgh, T & T Clark, 1996, 433 p.,
?18.95, ISBN 0-567-08513-9 (pbk.).
331
Lev Krevza's A Defense of Church Unity and ZaxarijaKopystens'kyj'sPalinodia.

2 vol. Part 1: Texts. Translatedwith a Forewordby Bohdan Struminski.Edited
by Roman Koropeckyj and Dana R. Miller with William R. Veder. Part 2:
Sources. Compiled by Bohdan Struminskiand Igor Struminski. HarvardLibrary of Early UkrainianLiterature,English TranslationsVol. III. Part 1 and
2-Cambridge, MA, UkrainianResearch Instituteof HarvardUniversity (Distrib. by HarvardUniversity Press), 1995, 1165 p., ?36.50 (2 vol. set), ISBN
0-916458-29-6 + 0-916458-53-9 (cloth).
Schacter, Daniel L. (Ed.), Memory Distortion. How Minds, Brains, and Societies
Reconstructthe Past-Cambridge, MA and London, HarvardUniversityPress,
1995, 417 p., ?31.50, ISBN 0-674-56675-0 (cloth).
Poo, Mu-chou, Wine and Wine Offering in the Religion of Ancient Egypt. Studies
in Egyptology-London and New York,KeganPaul International,1995, 187 p.,
?65.00, ISBN 0-7103-0501-X (cloth).
Smith, Stuart Tyson, Askut in Nubia: The Economics and Ideology of Egyptian
Imperialismin the Second Millenium BC. Studies in Egyptology-London and
New York, Kegan Paul International,1995, 242 p. + plates, ?75.00, ISBN
0-7103-0500-1 (cloth).
Zubair,Zeba, From Mutinyto Mountbatten.A BiographicalSketch of and Writings
by Altaf Husain, formerEditor of Dawn-London and New York, Kegan Paul
International,1996, 119 p., ?35.00, ISBN 0-7103-0548-6 (cloth).
Harlow, Daniel C., The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) in Hellenistic
Judaism & Early Christianity. Series: Studia in Veteris TestamentiPseudepigrapha, 12-Leiden, New York, Koln, E.J. Brill, 1996, 263 p., US$ 104.50,
ISBN 90-04-10309-0 (cloth).
Vroom, HendrikM., No Other Gods. ChristianBelief in Dialogue with Buddhism,
Hinduism, and Islam. Translatedfrom the Dutch by Lucy Jansen-Grand
Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, UK, William B. EerdmansPublishing Company, 1996, 174 p., US$ 18.00, ISBN 0-8028-4097-3 (pbk.).
Douglas, Mary, In the Wilderness. The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of
Numbers. Journalfor the Old TestamentSupplementSeries, 158-Sheffield,
ISOT Press / Sheffield Academic Press, 1993, 259 p., ?40.00, ISBN 1-85075444-6 (cloth).
Bennett, Clinton,In Searchof the Sacred. Anthropologyandthe Studyof ReligionsLondon: Cassell, 1996, 218 p., ?45.00, ISBN 0-304-33681-5 (cloth); ?14.99,
ISBN 0-304-33682-3 (pbk.).
Whaling, Frank (Ed.), Theory and Method in Religious Studies. Contemporary
Approachesto the Study of Religion-Berlin and New York,Walterde Gruyter,
1995, 427 p., DM 68.00, ISBN 3-11-014254-6 (pbk.).
Pentikainen,Juha (Ed.), Shamanismand NorthernEcology-Berlin and New York,
Walterde Gruyter,1996, 386 p., DM 178.00, ISBN 3-11-014186-8 (cloth).
332
Yi, Sang-t'aek,Religion and Social Formationin Korea. Minjungand Millenarianism

-Berlin and New York, Walterde Gruyter, 1996, 246 p., DM 148.00, ISBN
3-11-014797-1 (cloth).
Kakar,Sudhir,The Colors of Violence. CulturalIdentities,Religion, and ConflictChicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1996, 217 p., $42.00,
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Shadid, W.A.R. and P.S. van Koningsveld (Eds.), Muslims in the Margin. Political
Responses to the Presence of Islam in WesternEurope-Kampen, Kok Pharos
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Egberts, A., In Quest of Meaning. A Study of the Ancient Egyptian Rites of Consecrating the Meret-Chestsand Driving the Calves. Vol. 1: Text, XXXVIII
+ 514 p.; Vol. 2: Tables and Plates, XV p. tables, 154 p. plates. Series:
Egyptologische Uitgaven, 8-Leiden, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije
Oosten, 1995, DFL 125.00, ISBN 90-6258-208-7 (paper).
Bengtsson, Per A., Two ArabicVersionsof the Book of Ruth. Text Edition and Language Studies. Series: Studia OrientaliaLundensia,6-Lund, Lund University
Press, 1995, XXXIII + 214 p., ISBN 91-7966-339-7 (paper).
Potter, Karl H. and SibajibanBhattacharyya(Eds.), Indian Philosophical Analysis.
Nyaya-Vaisesikafrom Gangesa to RagunathaSiromani. Series: Encyclopedia
of Indian Philosophies, 6-Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1994,
672 p., $65.00, ISBN 0-691-07384-8 (cloth).
Kriger, J.S., Along Edges. Religion in South Africa: Bushmen, Christian,Buddhist
-Pretoria, Universityof South Africa (Unisa Press, PO Box 392, 0001 Pretoria,
South Africa), 1995, 368 p., R 61.39, ISBN 0-86981-907-0 (cloth).
Westerlund,David (Ed.), Questioningthe Secular State. The WorldwideResurgence
of Religion in Politics-London, Hurst& Company,1996, 428 p., ?45.00, ISBN
1-85065-240-6 (cloth); ?12.95, ISBN 1-85065-241-4 (pbk.).
Parratt,John (Ed.), The Practice of Presence. ShorterWritings of Harry Sawyerr.
Forewordby Andrew Walls-Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1996, 149 p., ISBN 0-8028-4115-5 (pbk.).
Schaefer,Udo / Towfigh,Nicola / Gollmer,Ulrich, Desinformationals Methode. Die
Baha'ismus-Monographiedes F. Ficicchia. Series: Religionswissenschaftliche
Texte und Studien, 6-Hildesheim, Zurich, New York, Georg Olms Verlag,
1995, 685 p., DM 65.00, ISBN 3-487-10041-X (cloth).
Waldmann, Helmut, Aufsatze zu Religionsgeschichte und Theologie. Tibinger
Gesellschaft, WissenschaftlicheReihe, vol. 6-Tubingen, Verlag der Tubinger
Gesellschaft, 1996, 232 p., DM 57.00, ISBN 3-928096-10-9 (paper).
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in Edessa, Indien und Rom. Tubinger Gesellschaft, WissenschaftlicheReihe,
vol. 5-Tubingen, Verlag der Tubinger Gesellschaft, 1996, XXIII + 195 p.,
DM 48.00, ISBN 3-928096-11-7 (paper).
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Hall, John Barrie(Ed.), Ovidius. Tristia-Stuttgart and Leipzig, B.G. Teubner,1995,
XXX + 263 p., DM 98.00, ISBN 3-8154-1567-5 (cloth).
Maslowski, T. (Ed.), Cicero. Scripta quae manseruntomnia. Fasc. 23, Orationes
in P. Vatiniumtestem et pro M. Caelio-Stuttgart and Leipzig, B.G. Teubner,
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(cloth).
Report
NEWS FROM THE INTERNATIONALASSOCIATIONFOR

THE HISTORYOF RELIGIONS(IAHR)
During the XVIIth Congress of the IAHR held in Mexico City
in August 1995, a new Executive Committee was elected by the
InternationalCommittee. The results were as follows: President:
Prof. Michael Pye (Marburg);Vice-Presidents: Prof. Peter Antes
(Hannover)and Dr. Yolotl Gonzalez Torres(Mexico City); General
Secretary: Prof. Armin W. Geertz (Aarhus);Deputy General Secretary: Prof. Rosalind Hackett (Knoxville); Treasurer:Prof. Donald
Wiebe (Toronto); Prof. Michio Araki (TsubukaCity); Prof. Giulia
Gasparro(Messina); Dr. Gerrieter Haar (Utrecht);Dr. Helena Helve
(Helsinki); Prof. Jacob Olupona (Davis); and Dr. A.I. Tayob (Cape
Town).
The congress in Mexico City was significantin many ways. In the
first place it gatheredmore than a thousandparticipantsfrom all over
the world thus being one of the most successful IAHR congresses
ever held. Secondly, it was held for the first time in a Latin American country, and it succeeded in bringing many participantsfrom a
variety of Latin Americancountries. The establishmentof the Cuban
Association for instance was a direct result of this congress. Thirdly,
the congress organisationconsisting of a combinationof plenum lectures and thematic symposia was shown to be more effective and
more interesting than the structureof former congresses based on
geography and/orreligions. Fourthly,the theme of the congress was
"Religion and Society", a theme that reconfirmedthe Warsawdeclaration of 1989 whereby the delegates at a conference on the relation
between the history of religions and the social sciences envisioned
a broaderdefinition of the term "history"and a closer cooperation
with the social sciences. Finally, there were a number of debates
concerning the structureand business routinesof the organisationitself which helped the delegates to focus on importantissues that an
internationalconglomerationof societies such as ours necessarily en? E. J. Brill, Leiden (1996)
NUMEN, Vol. 43
336
Armin Geertz
tails. An importantaspect in that connection is that the IAHR has

maintainedclose ties between organisationaland scientific issues so
that each can strengthenthe other.
One of the most importantorganisationalmattersacted upon during the GeneralAssembly was the vote concerningwhetherthe IAHR
should change its name. The result was an overwhelmingmajority
to keep the name as it is. As originally agreedupon, the result of the
vote on this matterin no way affects the mainstays of the discipline
nor the impetus of recent developmentsin theory and methodology.
It is my hope that the issue of the name can now be put behind
us so that we can get on with our work in the admirabletraditionof
methodologicalpluralismthathas always characterizedour discipline.
This year the IAHR held a special conference in Aarhus,Denmark
on "Rationalityand the Study of Religion" and a regional conference
in Bogota, Columbia which includes the "VI Congreso Latinoamericano de Religion y Etnicidad".Both conferences were held in June.
The Executive Committee of the IAHR met in Aarhus to decide on
a number of importantissues. Furtherinformationwill be provided
in the IAHR Bulletin slated to appearat the end of June. The IAHR
has also co-sponsoredand internationalcolloquium togetherwith the
InternationalSociety for Sociology of Religions and the Association
for the Study of Religious Phenomenon(Florence)on "TheReligious
Factor and the Europeanand WorldGeostrategy"in Florence, Italy.
Finally, the Executive Committee is currentlydeveloping individual subscriptionsto the IAHR Bulletin and is constructingthe IAHR
homepage on the WorldWide Web. For furtherinformationon these
and all other IAHR relatedmattersplease contact the GeneralSecretary.
Dept. of the Study of Religion
University of Aarhus
Main Building
DK-8000 AarhusC, Denmark
e-mail: geertz@teologi.aau.dk
ARMINGEERTZ
Walter
w
DE
Berlin
de
* New
Gruyter
York
Laurie L. Patton
Myth
as
Argument
The Brhaddevata as Canonical Commentary

1996. 22 x 15 cm. XXVIII, 549 pages.
Cloth DM 280,-; approx.$ 183.00
ISBN 3-11-013805-0
(Religionsgeschichtliche Versucheund Vorarbeiten,Vol. 41)
4th CenturyB.C. commentaryon the earliestgroupof religious
hymns in India, thought to be composed around 1200 B.C.
Contains Sanskritquotations.
From the contents:

Patterns of Thought: The Brhaddevata Introducesitself
Language and Cosmology I: Taxonomiesof Mantra
Language and Cosmology II: Etymologies and other
Linguistic Speculations
The Workof the Language:RSIS and Mantras
The Archaeology of the Brhaddevata
New Perspectives on CanonicalExegesis
Price is subject to change
Walter de Gruyter & Co., Postfach 30 34 21 D - 10728 Berlin

Tel.: (030) 260 05-0, Fax: (030) 260-05-222
Please visit us in the WorldWide Web at http://www.deGruyter.de

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INTERNATIONALREVIEWFOR THE

Sumner B. Twiss and Walter H. Conser Jr. (Eds), Experience of

Nanno Marinatosand Robin Hagg (Eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New

George J. Tanabeand Willa J. Tanabe,The Lotus Sutrain Japanese

Joachim Stiss, Zur Erleuchtung unterwegs. Neo-Sannyasin in

HananyaGoodman (Ed.), Between Jerusalemand Benares: Studies

Valerie Hansen, Negotiating Daily Life in TraditionalChina: How

Franz Overbeck, Werke und NachlaB. Band 1: Schriften bis 1873.

119, 237, 327

THE REVIVAL OF MEXICAN RELIGIONS:

All who are committedto the study of Prehispanicreligions, above

a complex deity in whom a series of differing attributesare united.

The Revival of Mexican Religions

warrior,the initiate is divested of his earthly covering (through the skinning)

In addition to these beautified interpretationsof Toltec religion, in

Yolotl Gonzalez Torres

The Revival of Mexican Religions

The efforts at conversion over five centuries resulted in Mexico's

The Revival of Mexican Religions

been able to understand,is not homogeneous, and is one in which

The Revival of Mexican Religions

that he assumed himself to be a Mestizo until he decided to adopt

sects were having strongerinfluence in Mexico (the Great Universal

The Revival of Mexican Religions

volved with differentesoteric groups such as masons, spiritualists,or

istrator. They are organized in kalpultin, which is the name of an

The Revival of Mexican Religions

The Revival of Mexican Religions

bus which stands in the same avenue as that of Cuauhtemoc, was

The Revival of Mexican Religions

tence to be guided, for this purposeKaltonalpracticesamong others the following ceremonies":

The tonalpohualli was the 260 days Mesoamerican ritual calendar

This is a steam bath which was used all over Mesoamericabasically

Even if we know thatthe Mexica utilized a greatnumberof techniques

Another purely Northamericanculturalinstrument.

Although dance was a very importantelement among Prehispanic

tontequiza," is a "cosmic movement of creative energy ... (in which)

The Revival of Mexican Religions

he traveled as a manual laborer to the United States where he was

a battle was fought between christianizedand pagan Indians,and "at

The Revival of Mexican Religions

moc and the Malinche are mentioned as well as other personages

The Revival of Mexican Religions

The founderof this movementis Antonio VelazcoPifia, who through

The Revival of Mexican Religions

dence. This task would be completed by Tibetans. As Regina failed

used in their ritualsby the people of the New Mexicanidadand their

The Revival of Mexican Religions

The Revival of Mexican Religions

Boturini, Benaducci Lorenzo

The Revival of Mexican Religions

Robbins, Thomas and Anthony,Dick

CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF SACRED

Construction (First Millennium AD)

It seems worthwile to reconsider Kane's claim by studying the process

Sacred Space in Vdrdnasi

We possess an eye-witness account from the 4th decade of the 7th

Sacred Space in Vdrdnasi

It is one of the peculiaraspects of Varanasi'sdevelopmentinto a holy

Sacred Space in Vdrdnasi

ing for emotional needs, for the benefit of those pursuinghappiness

No doubt Hindu sanctuarieswere desecratedas well, but the damage

Sacred Space in Vdranasi

had managed to pacify the 'Hammira'(i.e. his Muslim adversary).33